US STOCKS-Wall St ends lower with Washington turmoil, earnings in view

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(Updates with market close at 4 p.m.)
By Sinéad Carew
NEW YORK Jan 11 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes
closed lower on Monday as investors took some profits after last
weeks' record levels while they waited for earnings season to
begin and eyed events in Washington with trepidation.
U.S. stocks had rallied last week as investors bet that
Democrats' win of Georgia runoff elections would bring a higher
likelihood of a heftier fiscal stimulus package to boost the
pandemic-savaged economy. But some investors worried stimulus could be delayed as
House Democrats introduced a resolution to impeach U.S.
President Donald Trump, accusing him of inciting insurrection
following a violent attack on the Capitol by his supporters.
"When markets are looking at something as critical as the
governance of the United States, even a little bit of
uncertainty can have a meaningful impact," said Brad McMillan,
chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial Network in
Waltham, Massachusetts. "What does that do to the ability of the
parties to work together to pass policy things like stimulus."
McMillan said investors also worried about more attacks. The
FBI has warned of possible armed protests being planned for
Washington, D.C., and at all 50 U.S. state capital cities in the
run-up to President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20, a
federal law enforcement source said on Monday. "Generally speaking, Washington doesn't make too much of a
difference but since policy is influencing so much of what's
expected around the economy, this is kind of a unique time," he
said.
But with U.S. Treasury yields rising on Monday and
outperformance of economically-sensitive sectors such as energy
and financials, Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at Truist
Advisory Services in Atlanta, Georgia, said investors were still
hopeful about stimulus.
"After last week the market is in a little bit of a
digestion phase. Underneath the surface what you're seeing
continue is the reflation trade," said Lerner. "This is a
continuation of the expectation of more fiscal stimulus."
And along with wariness about Trump's last nine days in
office, Lerner also cited uncertainty ahead of the unofficial
start of earnings season on Friday when banks such as JPMorgan
JPM.N report results.
After the market's big run up last week and in the last
trading days of 2020, it is "somewhat impressive" there is not
more profit taking, he said.
Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell
0.29% to end at 31,008.69 points, while the S&P 500 .SPX lost
0.66% to 3,799.61.
The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 1.25% to 13,036.43.
Shares of the micro-blogging site Twitter Inc TWTR.N
tumbled after it permanently suspended Trump's account. But it
shares were still about 160% higher that where they traded
before Trump won the Presidential election in 2016. Big Tech firms Facebook Inc FB.O , Alphabet Inc-owned
Google GOOGL.O and Apple Inc AAPL.O were also weak on Monday
as they took their strongest actions yet against Trump to limit
his social media reach. Investors are expecting guidance on the extent to which
executives see a rebound in 2021 earnings and the economy from
results and conference calls from JP Morgan, Citi C.N and
Wells Fargo WFC.N Friday. Boeing Co BA.N fell on Monday after a 737-500 jet operated
by Indonesia's Sriwijaya Air with 62 people on board crashed on
Saturday. However, shares in Eli Lilly and Co LLY.N rose sharply on
Monday after a small trial of its experimental Alzheimer's drug
found that it slowed by about a third the rate of decline in a
combined measure of cognition and function in patients at an
early stage of the disease.