Stocks slide on weak factory data

By Andrea Tse and wire reports

Stocks fell Monday after a report showed U.S. manufacturing slowed last month for the first time in nearly three years.

The Institute for Supply Management's index of manufacturing activity fell to 49.7, down from 53.5 in May to the lowest reading since July 2009, The Associated Press reported. Readings below 50 indicate contraction. New manufacturing orders also dropped below 50 for the first since April 2009. Factories also reported lower demand from overseas, likely because of Europe's financial crisis, AP said.

And the Commerce Department reported that U.S. builders increased their spending in May by the largest amount in five months, rising 0.9% after a 0.6% rise in April. It was the biggest percentage gain since December, AP reported. The increase pushed spending to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $830 billion, 11.3% above a 12-year low hit in February 2011. Still, the level of spending is roughly half of what economists consider to be healthy, AP said.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) was down 68 points at 12,812. The S&P 500 ($INX) was down 5 points at 1,357. The Nasdaq Composite ($COMPX) was down 5 points at 2,930.

U.S. stocks staged a huge rally Friday as investors cheered the progress being made at the latest European Union summit to address the region's debt crisis.

"With the summit safely out of the way we can raise our minds from the gutter of European politics to the pure atmosphere of economics," said Paul Donovan, a global economist at UBS.

The FTSE in London was rising 0.61% and the DAX in Germany was gaining 1.31%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was closed for the day. The Nikkei in Japan finished down 0.04%.

Barclays (BCS) said Monday its chairman, Marcus Agius, has resigned after the bank's $453 million settlement of an investigation into alleged interest rate manipulation. Regulators in the U.S. and the U.K. alleged that Barclays had submitted false data for setting the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, between 2005 and 2009. Agius had been chairman at Barclays since the beginning of 2007.

Technology distributor Ingram Micro (IM) has agreed to acquire wireless device distributor BrightPoint (CELL) for $840 million, including debt. The offer of $9 a share is a 66% premium to BrightPint's closing price Friday of $5.41.

Germany's Linde has agreed to buy Lincare (LNCR) for about $3.8 billion. Under the deal, Linde will pay $41.50 a share for Lincare, a leader in the U.S. home respiratory market. Lincare shares closed Friday at $34.02.

Apple (AAPL) paid $60 million to Shenzhen Proview Technology to settle a dispute in China over ownership of the iPad name, a court announced Monday, according to The Associated Press. The deal removes a potential obstacle to sales of the iPad in China, a key market.

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