AlQa'dah 18, 1434, Sep 24, 2013, SPA -- Stocks fell Monday, with the Dow industrials and broader Standard & Poor's 500 index declining for a third consecutive session, as investors worried about the strength of the U.S. economy and the likelihood for a budget fight in Washington. The U.S. House of Representatives voted to defund President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul on Friday, a symbolic gesture that reminded Wall Street that the Republican-led chamber and the Democratic-controlled Senate are poised for a confrontation over spending. Moreover, the debt ceiling must be raised by October 1 to avoid a government shutdown, and a potential default on obligations, including debt, later in the month. There were no U.S. economic reports released Monday. The U.S. dollar rose versus the euro and fell versus the yen. Light sweet crude for November delivery fell $1.16, or 1.1 percent, to $103.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures fell $5.50, or 0.4 percent, to $1,327 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 49.71, or 0.3 percent, to 15,401.38. Goldman Sachs, Nike, and Visa began trading on the 30-member index Monday, replacing Alcoa, Bank of America, and Hewlett-Packard. The S&P 500 index fell 8.07, or 0.5 percent, to 1,701.84. Financial stocks fell the most among the 10 industrial groups in the index. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 9.44, or 0.25 percent, to 3,765.29. Shares of Apple rose nearly 5 percent after the company said it sold 9 million of its newest iPhones in three days. Shares of BlackBerry rose more than 1 percent after a consortium offered to buy the troubled Canadian smart-telephone maker for $4.7 billion.
