US STOCKS-Wall St slips on Greece, China worries; energy stocks lower

May 11, 2015 4:32 PM

* Oil prices fall after rising for eight straight weeks

* Apple biggest drag on S&P 500, Nasdaq

* Indexes: Dow down 0.3 pct, S&P down 0.3 pct, Nasdaq up 0.03 pct (Updates to early afternoon)

By Tanya Agrawal

May 11 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were broadly down in afternoon trading on Monday on worries about Greece's precarious financial condition and slowing growth in China, while energy stocks fell on weaker oil prices.

The U.S. stock market, which rallied on Friday on a strong jobs report, has been trading at historically expensive valuations, fueled by ultra-low borrowing costs.

The S&P 500 is trading at 17 times expected earnings, compared with its historical 10-year median average of 15, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data.

"Even though the market closed up on Friday, more stocks were lower for the week and that points to weakness," said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago.

"We could see some sloppy action for the next couple of sessions."

U.S. light crude was down after rising for eight straight weeks, the longest winning stretch since early 2013, on signs that U.S. shale oil production was recovering.

Five of the 10 major S&P 500 sectors were down, led by the energy index, which fell 1.73 percent.

Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhilips were all down between 1 percent and 2.5 percent.

Adding to the pessimism, OPEC said it did not expect oil prices to consistently trade at $100 barrel again in the next decade, the Wall Street Journal reported.

At 12:52 p.m. ET (1652 GMT) the Dow Jones industrial average was down 54.05 points, or 0.3 percent, at 18,137.06, after posting its largest one-day gain in over three months on Friday.

The S&P 500 was down 5.45 points, or 0.26 percent, at 2,110.65, just over 15 points shy of the life-high it touched in April, while the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.54 points, or 0.03 percent, at 5,005.09.

Apple was the biggest drag on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, with its shares down 0.8 percent at $126.52. Smartphone shipments in China shrank for the first time in six years, according to market research firm IDC.

European markets largely closed down as euro zone finance ministers met to discuss a cash-for-reforms deal for Greece, even though the country said it made a payment of about 750 million euros ($836 million) to the IMF.

Asian shares closed higher on China's third rate cut in six months but U.S. markets focused on slowing growth in the world's largest-growing economy.

Rosetta Resources soared 27.66 percent to $24.66 after Noble Energy said it would buy the company for about $2 billion. Noble fell 5.6 percent to $46.34.

Dean Foods jumped as much as 10.2 percent to a three-month high of $17.94, after it reported a quarterly profit above estimates.

Viggle jumped 75.5 percent to $4.17 after the Web-based entertainment and marketing services provider's quarterly revenue jumped 52 percent.

Go Daddy rose 3.6 percent to $25.77 after its post-IPO lock-up period expired, while Etsy fell 8.5 percent to $20.76 after Wedbush Securities downgraded it to "underperform" from "neutral."

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,722 to 1,281, for a 1.34-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,639 issues rose and 1,020 fell for a 1.61-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

The S&P 500 index posted 19 new 52-week highs and 3 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 57 new highs and 31 new lows. ($1 = 0.8969 euros) (Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

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