S&P 500 starts the new week on the back foot, energy stocks fall sharply

• Wall Street's main indexes opened in the negative territory.
• Energy shares suffer heavy losses on slumping oil prices.
• Dismal data from China and US seem to be weighing on sentiment.

Major equity indexes in the US opened modestly lower on Monday as investors seem to have turned cautious on disappointing data releases from China and the US. As of writing, the S&P 500 Index was down 0.4% on the day at 4,449, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was losing 0.63% at 35,292 and the Nasdaq Composite was falling 0.35% at 14,772.

The data from China showed on Monday that Retail Sales and Industrial Production expanded at a weaker pace than expected in July. Additionally, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Empire State Manufacturing Index fell sharply to 18.3 in August from 43 in July, missing the market expectation of 29 by a wide margin.

Among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors, the Energy Index is down 2% pressured by a 2.5% decline witnessed in crude oil prices. On the other hand, the Technology Index is the only major sector trading in the positive territory, rising 0.15% on a daily basis.

S&P 500 chart (daily)