U.S. stocks could resume their downturn if bond yields begin to move lower again, veteran trader Art Cashin told CNBC on Monday.
Stocks were trading sharply higher Monday, adding to a rebound that started on Thursday, a day after the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its worst session of the year.
Last Wednesday, stocks sank after the 10-year Treasury yield inverted and briefly fell below the 2-year yield, a move preceding every recession over the past 50 years. The 10-year and 2-year yields have since gone back to normal.
Cashin noted that once bond yields stopped moving lower last week, stocks bounced.
"It may just be a simple coincidence, but I think not," the UBS director of floor operations at the New York Stock Exchange said on "Squawk Alley." "I think if yields roll over and start slipping, we may see renewed pressure on stocks."
Should stocks nosedive again, Cashin said he would be watching for key levels at 26,000 on the Dow and 2,822 on the S&P 500. The Dow was at 26,176 and the S&P was at 2,927 on Monday afternoon.
"That would be a bit of a problem" if the Dow and S&P 500 moved below those levels, Cashin said. "For right now, you're in a kind of a mid-level 'Never Never Land.'"
U.S. stocks have had a rough month, with the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq each posting three consecutive weekly losses. While remaining on pace for a negative August, they're all still up double-digit percentage-wise in 2019.
Cashin began his career at Thomson McKinnon in 1959. In 1964, at age 23, he became a member of the NYSE and a partner in P.R. Herzig & Co.