U.S. stocks mostly declined on Monday, with Chevron and Exxon Mobil among the blue chips hit as the price of crude fell to a more than two-year low.
"We're still reconciling with the performance of October," said Jim Dunigan managing executive, investments at PNC Wealth Management, who attributed positive earnings as helping pull the market out of its funk in the middle of the month. "At least for today, the market is going to wait and see what Americans do at the polls," Dunigan added of Tuesday's midterm elections.
Of the 366 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings for the third quarter, just over 75 percent have beaten expectations, while 58 percent have posted revenue that topped estimates, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.
Monday's economic reports had the Institute for Supply Management's gauge of manufacturing rising to 59 in October, matching August as the best reading since March 2011.
Separate data had construction spending falling 0.4 percent in September.
Sapient rallied after a French advertising company, Publicis Groupe, said it would pay $3.7 billion to buy the company. Covance jumped as Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings said it would purchase the supplier of research services for drug companies for about $6.1 billion.
Major U.S. Indexes
After climbing 20 points to an intraday record, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much as 50 points, and ended down 24.28 points, or 0.1 percent, at 17,366.24, with Chevron pacing blue-chip losses.
Also rising to an all-time high just after the open, the shed a fraction to close at 2,017.81, with energy hardest hit as the price of crude marked its first close below $79 a barrel since mid-2012.
Diamond Offshore Drilling, QEP Resources, Noble and Transocean were among the energy companies on the decline.
Stepping into the red for the first time late in Monday's session, The Nasdaq recovered to end up 8.17 points, or 0.2 percent, at 4,638.91.
Decliners ran just ahead of advancers on the New York Stock Exchange, where nearly 800 million shares traded. Composite volume surpassed 3.5 billion.
The U.S. dollar gained against the currencies of major U.S. trading partners and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note used to figure mortgage rates and other consumer loans rose a basis point to 2.3436 percent.
Dollar-denominated commodities including oil and gold fell on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where crude futures dropped $1.76, or 2.2 percent, to settle at $78.78; gold futures for December delivery sliding $1.80, or 0.2 percent, to $1,169.80 an ounce.
On Friday, U.S. stocks surged, lifting the Dow industrials and S&P 500 to record closes, after the Bank of Japan unexpectedly expanded stimulus, increasing hopes for the global economy.
Read More October not so scary; Dow, S&P close at record highs
—By CNBC's Kate Gibson
Coming Up This Week:
Tuesday
Mid-term elections
Earnings: Albibaba, Archer Daniels Midland, Burger King, Discovery Communications, Michael Kors, Estee Lauder, Intercontinental Exchange, Transcanada, Valero Energy, FireEye, Activision Blizzard, Regeneron, Motorola Solutions, Talisman Energy, Time Inc, Red Robin Gourmet Burger, Priceline, Dish Networks
8:30 a.m.: International trade
10:00 a.m.: Factory orders
Wednesday
Earnings: Time Warner, Tesla, Mondelez, Qualcomm, CBS, Toyota Motors, Tim Hortons, Holly Frontier, ING Group, Chesapeake Energy, Duke Energy, Towers Watson, Lamar Advertising, Rowan Cos, NRG, Scotts Mircale-Gro, Whole Foods, Tesla Motors, News Corp, Soar City, Zillow
8:15 a.m.: ADP employment
9:15 a.m.: Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota
9:30 a.m.: Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker
10:00 a.m.: Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren
10:00 a.m.: ISM nonmanufacturing
Thursday
Earnings: Disney, AstraZeneca, Siemens, AOL, AMC Networks, Molson Coors Brewing, Advance Auto Parts, First Solar, Cablevision, Echostar, Henry Schein, Apache, Scripps Networks, Wendy's El Pollo Loco, Lionsgate, Zynga, Biocryst Pharma, Cablevision, Enbraer, Calpine, Windstream, Con Ed, Tekmira
European Central Bank meets
Monthly chain store sales
8:30 a.m.: Initial claims
8:30 a.m.: Productivity and costs
10:40 a.m.: Chicago Fed's Evans
7:05 p.m.:Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester
Friday
Earnings: Berkshire Hathaway, Allianz, Nippon Telegraph, ArcelorMittal, Humana
8:30 a.m.: Employment report
9:15 a.m.: Chicago Fed's Evans
10:15 a.m.: Fed Chair Janet Yellen on policy in Paris
1:00 p.m.: Chicago Fed's Evans
2:30 p.m.: Fed Vice Chair Daniel Tarullo
3:00 p.m.: Consumer credit
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