By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The Dow closed lower Monday, after flirting between gains and losses intraday as investors digested the latest wave of quarterly earnings, including better-than-expected results from Bank of America.

The fell 0.1%, or 39 points, while the was flat and the dropped 0.1%.

Bank of America (NYSE 🙂 posted second-quarter results which beat both top and bottom line. Strong trading growth and a pickup in lending led to Bank of America’s share price exceeding 3%.

Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan talked up the prospect for the bank’s lending business, forecasting “significant NII [net interest income] improvement through the next several quarters,”  as the Federal Reserve is expected to step-up the pace of rate hikes in the next few months.

The positive remarks helped allay some of the fears about the shape of the consumer after JPMorgan’s quarterly results last week stoked concerns about loan losses.

The surge in Treasury yields, which were closer to 3% than before the Fed tightened its monetary policies, also helped banks.  

The gains in tech were mostly greater, but they were limited by the surging Treasury yields. These tend to make tech and long-duration markets unattractive. 

Twitter (NYSE:), meanwhile, continued to dominate investor attention, rising more than 7%, after the social media company launched a limited duration shareholder rights plan, or “poison pill,” to thwart Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s bid to take the company private.

The limited duration shareholder rights plan would allow other shareholders to buy shares of Twitter at a discount, diluting Musk’s stake if it reaches 15%, which is the threshold for triggering the so-called poison pill, making it expensive for him to acquire the company.

China tech news: Didi Global Inc ADR ADR (NYSE 🙂 plunged more than 18% following a report of a decrease in fourth quarter revenue. The company also announced that it will hold a shareholder voting to remove its shares from the stock exchange on May 23.

The sector that performed best was Energy, which saw a more than 1% increase in performance. This is because oil prices continue to rise amid new supply worries, already amplified by the possibility of prolonged Russia-Ukraine conflict, and Libya’s reduction in production.

Valero Energy Phillips 66 (NYSE) and Coterra Energy were the most successful companies in the energy industry.

Health care was a big drag on the broader market, paced by a decline in vaccine makers, including Moderna (NASDAQ:) and Pfizer (NYSE:).