Hub International agrees to be acquired in $4.4 billion deal
By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks opened modestly lower on Monday, with Wall Street taking a break after hitting record highs last week, ahead of a report on U.S. service industries in July.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA -0.35% fell 51.61 points, or 0.3%, to 15,606.75.
The S&P 500 index SPX -0.20% lost 4.93 points, or 0.3%, to 1,704.74, with energy pacing sector declines.
The Nasdaq Composite COMP -0.07% shed 5.04 points, or 0.1%, to 3,684.54.
For every share gaining, roughly two fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where 50 million issues exchanged hands as of 9:40 a.m. Eastern. Composite volume topped 128 million.
The dollar DXY +0.04% edged higher against the currencies of major U.S. trading partners and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note 10_YEAR +1.04% climbed 3 basis points to 2.633%.
Crude-oil futures CLU3 -0.90% declined 94 cents, or 0.9%, to $106 a barrel and gold futures GCZ3 -0.20% slipped $2.30, or 0.2% to $1,308.20 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Ahead of Monday’s open, Hub International Ltd., a global insurance brokerage, said it would be acquired by funds advised by private-equity investment firm Hellman & Friedman LLC in a deal valued at $4.4 billion. Read announcement.
The Institute for Supply Management’s nonmanufacturing index is expected at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher will talk about the economy in a speech slated to begin at 11:45 a.m. Eastern.
Central bankers have been considering the timing and pace of possible reductions in the Fed’s $85 billion in monthly bond purchases.
Kate Gibson is a reporter for MarketWatch, based in New York.