Wall Street was lower in midday trade on light action due to the Columbus Day holiday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.4 percent to 14,015.77, while the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.3 percent to 2,772.26 and the S&P 500 fell 0.5 percent to 1,549.37 ahead of third-quarter results reporting, which begins Tuesday.
Aluminium group Alcoa (NYSE: AA) is scheduled to report first.
ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) was down 1.1 percent to $90.39 after crude oil prices fell nearly $2 per barrel in morning trade, while Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY) was $1.22 lower to $65.19 on an analyst downgrade.
In the mining sector, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (NYSE: FCX) dropped $3.36 to $107.30 on declining copper prices.
In the financial services sector, Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) fell $2.07 to $74.60 after it said it lost $5 billion on investments related to mortgages and buyout financing, earning it downgrades to “neutral” from both JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM; TYO: 8634) and Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS; SWX: CSGN).
Google (NAS: GOOG; LSE: GGEA) was up 1 percent to $599.80 after reaching a new record of $601.45 earlier in the session.