Dow closes more than 150 points lower as stocks take a break from their rally: Live updates

All three stock averages closed slightly lower for the day to kick off the last trading week of the month.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 162.26 points, or 0.41%, to settle at 39,313.64. The S&P 500 dipped 0.31%, finishing at 5,218.19, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.27% to close at 16,384.47.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Strong U.S. economic data and an artificial intelligence-powered rally have boosted stocks so far this year, and equities are likely to remain at their current levels into year-end, according to UBS.

"Our base-case scenario is for a soft landing in the US, in which economic growth moderates, inflation recedes further, and interest rates fall," the bank wrote. "We expect this to create a supportive backdrop for equity markets. However, we think a lot of good news is already priced in at the index level."

On the other hand, UBS also cautioned against near-term choppiness in the market that might materialize as traders adjust their expectations for the Federal Reserve's policy easing.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Most investors and the Federal Reserve's dot plot anticipate four rate cuts this year, but not Morgan Stanley's global director of research.

"We continue to expect a June start, followed by cuts at the Sep, Nov, and Dec meetings," the bank wrote. "Despite a higher long-run rate, the long-run growth projection was unchanged at 1.8%, indicating the Fed sees recent supply-side factors driving growth higher as temporary."

Morgan Stanley research added that small-cap stocks could feel the pressure if U.S. Treasury yields continue to increase.

"While large caps have exhibited declining rate sensitivity over the past few months, small caps' correlation with rates remains meaningfully negative, suggesting to us that they are more at risk than large-caps if UST yields move higher," the bank wrote.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Oppenheimer's John Stoltzfus raised his S&P 500 target to $5,500, a Wall Street high.

"For us the big surprise this year has not been so much the resilience of the economy but rather the substantial capitulation among the bears and bearish community," he wrote in a Monday note to clients. Investor sentiment "appears to be supported by needs to invest for the future rather than chase the latest hot pick or actionable idea of the day."

His new target reflects an upside of more than 5% from where the broad index finished last week. CNBC Pro subscribers can read the full story here.

— Alex Harring

The S&P 500 has officially gone 100 sessions without a pullback of at least 2% from a closing high, according to data from Bespoke Investment Group.

It comes amid a period of strength for the broad index, despite ongoing concerns about the state of the broader market rally. The index has climbed nearly 10% this year, extending gains after finishing 2023 with a return of more than 24%.

— Alex Harring

Some high-profile executives have cashed in on the recent rally in stocks, particularly in the tech sector.

Dell CEO Michael Dell and Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg each sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock last week, according to securities filings and VerityData.

Many professional investors track insider buying and selling in an attempt to identify trends that could give clues about how management teams feel about their company's prospects or their stock price.

Check out more insider activity on CNBC Pro.

— Jesse Pound

UBS believes it may be time for investors to pivot their portfolios towards the likely themes of the second quarter.

Looking ahead, the bank highlighted two primary market drivers playing out. First, the quarter is likely to be defined by major rate-cutting cycles undertaken by global central banks. Companies are also expected to widely adopt and implement artificial intelligence techniques.

"Against this backdrop, we believe investors' key focus should be on: 1) getting their exposure to the technology sector right, 2) ensuring that portfolio income streams are sustainable, and 3) employing effective portfolio risk management techniques," the bank wrote.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Crude oil futures rose Monday as Ukrainian drone strikes disrupt Russian refining capacity and Moscow orders output cuts to meet OPEC+ targets.

The West Texas Intermediate contract for May gained $1.21, or 1.50%, to $81.84 a barrel. The Brent contract for May added $1.14, or 1.33%, to $86.57 a barrel.

Russia has ordered companies to cut oil output to meet Moscow's commitments to OPEC+, industry sources told Reuters Monday. Several OPEC+ countries have agreed to voluntary production cuts totaling 2.2 million barrels per day through the second quarter.

A Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire at the Kuibyshev oil refinery in the city of Samara over the weekend. Industry sources told Reuters that one of the major refining units at the facility was knocked out after the assault.

— Spencer Kimball

Energy has been the top-performing S&P 500 sector in March, rising 9.2%.

Valero Energy and Marathon Petroleum led the group's gains, rising 20.2% and 18.5%, respectively.

Year to date, the energy sector is now up more than 11%.

Other outperforming sectors in March include materials and communication services, which are each 4.6% higher.

— Hakyung Kim

Check out some of the companies making headlines in midday trading.

• Boeing — Shares ticked up 1.6% after the aerospace company said earlier on Monday that chief executive officer David Calhoun would step down at the end of 2024. Board chairman Larry Kellner will also step down, the company added.

• Masimo — The medical technology company climbed nearly 5%. On Friday, Masimo announced its board of directors has authorized management to evaluate a spinoff of its consumer business. Wells Fargo upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight in light of the news.

• Super Micro Computer — The chip stock jumped nearly 10% after JPMorgan initiated coverage of the high-flying name. Analyst Samik Chatterjee issued Super Micro a rating of overweight and gave it a price target of $1,150, implying about 18% upside from Friday's close.

Read the full list here.

— Brian Evans

Stocks whose performance is tied to the price of bitcoin surged with the cryptocurrency on Monday.

MicroStrategy, which trades as proxy for the price of bitcoin, surged 14%, while Coinbase advanced 9%. The mining sector got a lift from bitcoin too, with Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms up 4% and 5%, respectively. CleanSpark rose 11% and Cipher Mining gained 12%.

Bitcoin gained 6% to trade at $69,720.82, according to Coin Metrics. It had been in correction mode for the past week, after hitting an all-time high of $73,797.68 on March 14. Last Wednesday, it slid to as low as about $60,800.

— Tanaya Macheel

Communication services stocks underperformed on Monday, dragging down the S&P 500 sector 0.7% during late-morning trading.

Take-Two Interactive was the worst-performing stock in the sector, dropping nearly 6%. Popular technology giants Alphabet and Meta Platforms dipped 1% each. Match Group and Electronic Arts declined less than 1%.

— Samantha Subin

A gauge of metal and mining stocks is on pace for its first winning month this year.

The SPDR S&P Metals & Mining ETF (XME) has added around 4% so far in March. If that holds through the end of the trading month, which concludes with Thursday's closing bell, it will mark the first positive one since December.

Century Aluminum and Coeur Mining led the fund higher this month, with each rallying more than 30%. Hecla Mining and Freeport-McMoRan were the next biggest gainers, jumping more than 20% each.

Despite those gains, some stocks in the ETF bucked the trend. Compass Minerals, the worst performer, plunged more than 30% this month. Alpha Metallurgical followed with a drop of more than 16%.

— Alex Harring, Gina Francolla

In a Monday report HSBC raised its year-end target for the S&P 500 to 5,400, or 3% higher from where the index closed last Friday.

"The higher target stems from better earnings expectations supported by resilient GDP growth, recent earnings beats, and positive sentiment from corporates in the last earnings season," strategist Nicole Inui wrote. "Our target is predicated on the Fed cutting rates in June with 75bp total cuts in 2024, in line with consensus and Fed expectations based on the recent dot plot."

However, Inui added that she expects the second half of the year to be more volatile, citing reasons such as the U.S. presidential election, elevated earnings expectations and increasing investor clamor from "when" to "how much" the Fed will cut, she wrote.

— Lisa Kailai Han

New home sales clocked in at 662,000 for February, slightly below the Dow Jones estimate of 675,000. That marks a 0.3% decline from the 664,000 sold in January.

The data contrasts the 9.5% spike seen in existing home sales for last month.

— Fred Imbert

JPMorgan expects the astounding run in this technology stock to continue as the artificial intelligence revolution sweeps Wall Street.

Analyst Samik Chatterjee initiated coverage of this server stock with an overweight rating as it leads the AI compute market "still in its infancy."

Read more on the hot technology stock here.

— Samantha Subin

U.S. stocks opened lower on Monday to kick off the final trading week of March.

The S&P 500 slid 0.3%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 70 points, or 0.2%. The Nasdaq Composite shed 0.5%.

— Lisa Kailai Han

When the current market rally finally falters, investors should jump into stocks because the pullback won't last long, according to Canaccord Genuity.

Analyst Tony Dwyer said in a note to clients Monday that the stock market is in "one of the longest overbought periods in history" but that doesn't mean stocks have to fall.

"Typically, such an extreme is followed by a churning market over the short to intermediate term rather than a dramatic pullback, which reinforces our view to buy weakness if/when it comes. We continue to believe that any pickup in volatility over coming weeks/months should be used to add to the broader market vs. the SPX," the note said.

— Jesse Pound

These are some of the stocks making notable moves in Monday premarket trading:

• Boeing — The plane maker advanced 2.1% after announcing a broad leadership shakeup. The changes come amid a period of increased scrutiny and a reputational crisis for the company.
• Cleveland-Cliffs — The steel producer added 1.7% after announcing it won award negotiations for Department of Energy funding on two projects. 
• Foot Locker — The shoe retailer popped 2.9% on the back of an Evercore ISI upgrade to outperform from in line.

See the full list here.

— Alex Harring

Boeing advanced more than 2% in premarket trading after the plane maker announced that CEO Dave Calhoun would step down.

Calhoun will leave his post at the end of 2024, part of a broad leadership shakeup for the embattled aero company. Larry Kellner, chairman of the board, is resigning and will leave the board at the company's annual meeting in May. Stan Deal, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, has exited effective immediately.

The moves come amid a period of scrutiny and a reputational crisis after a panel blew out on a Boeing plane midflight. Boeing shares have tumbled more than 27% in 2024.

— Alex Harring

Investors have been clamoring for a market broadening this year, but all evidence so far points to this being a myth, according to Raymond James.

"As we show in the chart(s) of the week, this drumbeat of 'broadening' is just not matched by data. The S&P 500 continues to outperform the Equal-Weighted Russell 1000 (almost every week this year), which we would argue is a textbook example of a 'narrow' market," the bank wrote.

Meanwhile, strategist Tavis McCourt noted that Nvidia has still outperformed 10 "AI Derivative" plays every week in 2024.

"Again, no dramatic broadening occurring," he wrote.

— Lisa Kailai Han

The European Union said Monday it started a probe on Apple, Alphabet and Meta platforms under its new Digital Markets Act.

"Today, the Commission has opened non-compliance investigations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) into Alphabet's rules on steering in Google Play and self-preferencing on Google Search, Apple's rules on steering in the App Store and the choice screen for Safari and Meta's 'pay or consent model'," the Commission said in a statement.

Shares of the three companies fell slightly in the premarket.

— Fred Imbert

Malaysia's headline inflation rate has climbed for the first time since August 2022, coming in at 1.8% compared with 1.5% in January.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast inflation rate to drop to 1.4%.

On a month-on-month basis, the inflation rate in Malaysia rose 0.5%, up from 0.2% in January.

— Lim Hui Jie

Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese food delivery firm Meituan jumped as much as 9.6% to 96.80 Hong Kong dollars, their highest level since late November.

The company reported revenue of 73.7 billion yuan ($10.31 billion) for the fourth quarter — a 22.6% jump from a year earlier.

Annual revenue for the company was at 276.7 billion yuan ($38.44 billion), up 26% from the previous year.

The company said it "continued to increase investment in China's consumer market and technology research and development."

— Shreyashi Sanyal

The current weakness in the Japanese yen does not reflect its fundamentals, according to Japan's top currency diplomat, Masato Kanda, Reuters reported.

The yen has weakened steadily over the past two weeks, even as the Bank of Japan moved to raise interest rates and abolished its yield curve control policy. The yen has crossed the psychological level of 150 against the greenback, trading at 151.28 currently.

Kanda told reporters that yen weakness, based on speculative moves, has a negative effect on the economy, according to the Reuters report.

However, Kanda said he doesn't have a specific exchange level in mind.

— Lim Hui Jie, Reuters

Stock futures opened slightly mixed on Sunday evening.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged lower by 33 points, or about 0.1%. S&P futures lost less than 0.1%, while Nasdaq 100 futures hovered just above flat.

Last week, all three major indexes crossed fresh all-time closing high levels.

— Pia Singh