US stocks hover near record highs as bank losses temper gains

Financial stocks fell amid worries about how much pain big banks will take following soured trades by a major US hedge fund.

United States stocks stabilised in afternoon trading Monday and hovered near the record highs they set last week, but losses for big banks tempered gains. The S&P 500 was down 0.1 percent as of 2:30pm Eastern time (18:30 GMT), after sliding 0.8 percent earlier. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 98.49 points, or 0.3 percent, to land at 33,171 and the Nasdaq composite was 0.8 percent lower. Both the S&P 500 and Dow reached record highs last week. Financial stocks dropped to some of the market’s sharpest losses amid worries about how much pain big banks will take following soured trades made by a major US hedge fund. Stocks of energy producers were also weak after the price of crude oil edged lower.