Stocks fell at the start of the week on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping about 250 points, as investors were concerned with rising oil prices, ongoing economic conditions and the upcoming third-quarter earnings season.
Here's how the market settled to start the week:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): -0.69% or -30.29 points to 4,361.05
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): -0.72% or -250.19 points to 34,496.06
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): -0.64% or -93.34 points to 14,486.20
Amazon to let team leds decide work-from-home schedules:
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) plans to give its employees more work-from-home flexibility moving forward, allowing individual team directors to decide how often their employees work in the office.
"We expect that there will be teams that continue working mostly remotely, others that will work some combination of remotely and in the office, and still others that will decide customers are best served having the team work mostly in the office," CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a public memo to employees on Monday. "We're intentionally not prescribing how many days or which days--this is for Directors to determine with their senior leaders and terms."
Goldman Sachs economists cut 2021, 2022 GDP growth forecast:
Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) economists cut their forecast for U.S. growth this year and in 2022, citing a delayed recovery in consumer spending. The investment bank's economists now forecast that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) will expand by just 5.6% this year, down from its prior estimates of 5.7%.
"After updating our estimates of the key growth impulses that drive our consumption forecast-reopening, fiscal stimulus, pent-up savings, and wealth effects and incorporations a longer-lasting virus drag on virus-sensitive consumer services spending, we now expect a more delayed recovery in consumer spending," the economists wrote in a note on Monday.
Goldman also cut its 2022 growth forecast from 4.3% to 4.0%, citing that the summer and fall COVID infection surges are still affecting the economy and will likely contribute to slower growth.
Southwest shares drop amid weekend flight canceling spree:
Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) shares slipped lower on Monday after the commercial airline canceled more than 2,000 flights over the weekend. The airline dropped 363 flights on Monday, down from 1,124 on Sunday, which was 30% of its planned schedule, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.
The company had previously announced that it would cut its fall schedules in effort to avoid the cancellations and delays that occurred during the summer.
Here's how market benchmarks started trading soon after opening bell:
S&P 500 Index: -0.13% or -5.89 points to 4,385.45
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.15% or +52.37 points to 34,798.62
Nasdaq Composite Index: -0.38% or -56.00 points to 14,525.98