By Samantha Pearson
Lingering concerns over sovereign debt in the eurozone overshadowed encouraging corporate results, sending US stocks lower in early trading on Monday.

Less than an hour after the opening bell, the S&P 500 was down 0.3 per cent at 1,062.87, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had lost 0.4 per cent to 9,968.40 and the Nasdaq was 0.3 per cent lower at 2,135.66.

Financial and materials stocks led the declines as investors focused on possible contagion from Greek fiscal woes and largely ignored positive signs from the retail sector.

Shares in CVS Caremark climbed 4.3 per cent to $32.39 after the retail pharmacy chain beat quarterly estimates. While total revenue fell below analysts’ expectations, sales from stores open for more than a year were still higher than those at rival Walgreen.

Hasbro added to the market’s gains, reporting a higher-than-expected quarterly profit. The toy maker said it had seen particularly strong demand for products linked to the Transformers movie. Its shares jumped 12.1 per cent to $34.48.

Home Depot added 2.5 per cent to $28.68 after Morgan Stanley raised the home-improvement chain to “overweight” from “equal-weight”. Analyst Gregory Melich noted improving trends in the housing market and said there was more room for margin growth than the market was currently pricing in.

Walt Disney also benefited from an upgrade, gaining 0.7 per cent to $29.75. Analysts at JPMorgan Chase raised the world’s largest media group to “neutral” from “underweight”. While improving economic conditions would boost revenues, Walt Disney is likely to lag behind the rest of the sector due to challenging trends at the film studio and parks, they said.

Weyerhaeuser, one of the world’s largest pulp and paper companies, was raised to “neutral” from “underperform” at Credit Suisse. The brokerage also raised its price target on the stock to $42 from $40 on the prospect of higher demand for wood in the economic recovery. Shares in the group rose 0.8 per cent to $39.77.

Elsewhere, CIT Group named John Thain, the ousted head of Merrill Lynch, as its new chief executive after searching for a replacement for almost four months. Shares in the lender, which emerged from bankruptcy in December, rose 3.7 per cent to $31.90.

The dollar index, which tracks the US currency’s progress against a basket of the world’s main currencies, was 0.1 per cent lower.

Gold was flat at $1,065.88 per ounce, as was the price of US crude at $71.18 a barrel.

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