Ahead to another busy week of earnings announcements from businesses including Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS), PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP), and Uber Technologies, U.S. stocks were down on Monday (NYSE:UBER).

The S&P 500 was down 1%, the NASDAQ Composite was down 1.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 242 points, or 0.7%, at 10:32 ET (15:32 GMT).

A week after the Federal Reserve increased interest rates by one-quarter of a percentage point, investors also anticipate Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s attendance at an event hosted by the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. on Tuesday.

Powell stated that the Fed still has work to do to control inflation. In the past year, the Biden Administration has prioritised combating inflation, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who made an appearance on ABC News on Monday morning before President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, which is set for Tuesday evening. Biden is expected to highlight legislative and policy actions that have decreased inflation and produced jobs during the previous year.

Yellen claimed that the economy was still headed in a direction that would prevent a recession. What I see is a scenario where inflation is sharply falling and the economy is still doing well, she said.

This year, stocks have risen on the hope that the Fed will soon stop raising interest rates. Despite Friday’s U.S. stocks market decline following unexpectedly positive January jobs data, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were up 1.6% and 3.3% for the week.

Investors anticipate information on jobless claims for last week and the preliminary February consumer confidence report from the University of Michigan this week.

Following a Bloomberg story stating that Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) was laying off 6,650 employees worldwide, or about 5% of its total staff, due to weak PC demand, the company’s shares slumped 4.3%.

Tyson Foods Inc. (NYSE:TSN) shares dropped 4.9% after the chicken and meat manufacturer missed quarterly targets due to sluggish demand and falling chicken prices.

Oil reversing previous gains Compared to Brent Oil Futures, which were down 0.4% to $79.64 a barrel, Crude Oil WTI Futures were down 0.8% to $72.79 a barrel. Gold futures increased 0.2% to $1,880.

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