US indexes wobble in early going, holding near record highs

People walk past a bank's electronic board showing the Hong Kong share index at Hong Kong Stock Exchange Monday, July 26, 2021. Asian shares opened mixed on Monday after stocks rallied to records on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing above the 35,000 level for the first time. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

A woman walks past a bank's electronic board showing the Hong Kong share index at Hong Kong Stock Exchange Monday, July 26, 2021. Asian shares opened mixed on Monday after stocks rallied to records on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing above the 35,000 level for the first time. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

A man walks past a bank's electronic board showing the Hong Kong share index at Hong Kong Stock Exchange Monday, July 26, 2021. Asian shares opened mixed on Monday after stocks rallied to records on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing above the 35,000 level for the first time. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

Stocks are wobbling between small gains and losses in the early going on Wall Street, keeping major indexes close to the record highs they set last week. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were little changed in the early going Monday. Weakness in some big tech stocks including Microsoft pulled the Nasdaq down 0.1%. U.S.-listed shares of several Chinese companies were lower following steep pullbacks in Chinese markets following more reports of regulatory restrictions on technology and education companies. U.S. shares of Tencent Music sank 8% and TAL Education dropped another 25%. The price of Bitcoin rose to $38,000.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

BANGKOK (AP) — World shares were mostly lower on Monday after stocks rallied to records on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing above the 35,000 level Friday for the first time.

Britain's FTSE 100 lost 0.4% to 6,998.08 and Germany's DAX declined 0.7% to 15,567.11. In Paris, the CAC 40 lost 0.6% to 6,526.86. The future for the Dow industrials slipped 0.6% while the contract for the S&P 500 shed 0.4% to 4,385.70.

Investors are awaiting a meeting of the Federal Reserve this week for indications of future policy as new outbreaks of coronavirus threaten the U.S. and global recoveries from the

Fresh news of regulatory moves against Chinese IT and education industry companies pulled shares lower in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

In Japan, preliminary factory and service activity surveys showed a slowdown linked to recent tightening of pandemic precautions due to surging coronavirus cases.

The flash purchasing managers index for the services sector fell to 46.5 in July from 48 in June, on a scale of 1-100 where 50 marks the break between expansion and contraction.

Manufacturing remained in expansion, but fell to 50.5 from 50.7 in June, said the au Jibun Bank survey. It said new export orders declined, possibly reflecting supply bottlenecks. Output fell at the fastest pace in six months.

“Short-term disruption to activity is likely to continue until the latest wave of COVID-19 infections passes and restrictions enacted under the state of emergency laws are lifted," Usamah Bhatti, economist at IHS Markit, said in a report.

Nonetheless, Tokyo's Nikkei 225, tracking Wall Street's strong finish on Friday, gained 1% to 27,833.29. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was unchanged at 7,394.30, while the Kospi in Seoul declined 0.9% to 3,224.95.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng sank 4.1% to 26,192.32 after Chinese regulators said they were further tightening restrictions on technology companies, requiring a “rectification" of misleading pop-up windows and other practices by software applications, or apps. The Shanghai Composite index dropped 2.3% to 3,467.44.

On Friday, the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all finished with gains of better than 1% for the week.

They each returned to records after brushing aside the sharp downturn that trimmed 1.6% off the S&P 500 on July 19. The market has rebounded as big companies reported better profits than expected and as investors once again saw any dip in stocks as merely a chance to buy low.

The S&P 500 index climbed 1% to 4,411.79. The Dow rose 0.7% to 35,061.55 and the Nasdaq composite gained 1% to 14,836.99.

Despite a rebound in new coronavirus cases, the U.S. economy has been recovering at a torrid pace, with the question being how much growth will slow in upcoming months and years.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury was steady at 1.26% on Monday. It has dropped from a perch of roughly 1.75% in late March, reflecting alarm over rising inflation.

With roughly a quarter of all the profit reports in from S&P 500 companies, nearly 90% have topped Wall Street’s already high expectations for the spring.

Companies in the index are on pace to report roughly 74% growth for earnings in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to FactSet. That would be the strongest growth since the economy was exploding out of the Great Recession at the end of 2009.

In other trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 62cents to $71.45 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It picked up 16 cents to $72.07 on Friday.

Brent crude, the international pricing benchmark, declined 45 cents to $73.65 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar weakened to 110.32 Japanese yen from 110.51 yen. The euro rose to $1.1792 from $1.1776.