Wall St. eases after last week's big gain; energy weighs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks edged lower in afternoon trading on Monday, pausing after the S&P 500's biggest weekly gain since January 2013, as energy shares fell with another decline in oil prices.

Shares of Gilead Sciences , due to report results Tuesday, were up 1.8 percent and helped to limit some of the declines. Micron Technology jumped 3.5 percent and was the largest percentage gainer on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 after it announced a $1 billion stock repurchase.

But leading the way lower were shares of energy companies. The S&P 500 energy index <.SPNY> was down 2.2 percent, with U.S. crude briefly trading below $80 a barrel. Goldman Sachs slashed its crude price forecasts, citing abundant supply and lackluster demand.

"We did have a big run last week, so the fact that we're flattish today is not a surprise," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.

"There's continued focus on the price of oil, and the debate is, yes, it really helps the consumer ... but, in terms of the producers, it's certainly a headwind to say the least."

At 2:44 p.m., the Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> fell 4.81 points, or 0.03 percent, to 16,800.6, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 4.76 points, or 0.24 percent, to 1,959.82 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 3.46 points, or 0.08 percent, to 4,480.25.

"This is another big week for earnings, so there's thinking, 'stay on the sidelines to see how they play out,'" Hellwig said.

With results in from 213 of the S&P 500 companies, 71.4 percent are beating analysts' expectations, well above the average 63 percent, Thomson Reuters data showed.

Shares of Brazilian companies traded in the United States tumbled after President Dilma Rousseff won reelection in a runoff vote, defeating centrist and market favorite Aecio Neves by a slim margin. Petrobras ADRs slumped 14.4 percent and Vale lost 6.3 percent.

A Brazilian exchange-traded fund dropped 4 percent.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,850 to 1,161, for a 1.59-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,509 issues fell and 1,129 advanced for a 1.34-to-1 ratio favoring decliners.

The benchmark S&P 500 index was posting 52 new 52-week highs and one new low; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 39 new highs and 56 new lows.

(Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Meredith Mazzilli and Nick Zieminski)

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