Stocks lower as Street posts 2nd day of losses

U.S. stocks came under pressure for a second straight day as the recent rally lost steam amid investor concerns about the coming earnings season and renewed selling in the oil patch.

Stocks posted their second straight day of losses after a rally pushed the broad U.S. stock market up more than 13% from the low on Feb. 11 and both the Dow Jones industrial average and broader Standard & Poor's 500 stock index back into positive territory for the year.

The Dow lost 134 points, or 0.8%, its first triple-digit point decline since March 8. The benchmark S&P 500 was off 1%, as was the Nasdaq composite.

Weighing on stocks this week is a relapse in the oil market, where prices for U.S. produced crude fell 3% Monday following a 4% dip Friday on continued skepticism that some kind of deal will get done by the world's leading oil producers to cap production in a world awash in oil.

Wall Street is also bracing for the coming first quarter earnings season, which kicks off unofficially next week when aluminum maker Alcoa reports. Analysts are forecasting a contraction in profits for S&P 500 companies for a third straight quarter but are hoping corporate CEOs paint a brighter profit picture for the balance of 2016.

CEO ‘outlook’ is key to earnings season

After an impressive surge into quarter-end, equity markets are now entering the more challenging second-quarter seasonal period wherein a pullback or pause would not be surprising," Robert Sluymer, a technical strategist at RBC Capital Markets, told clients in a note.

The big run-up since mid-February has pushed market valuations back into overvalued territory, which is also putting pressure on stocks now and limiting its upside.

One ray of light Tuesday was economic data from the Institute of Supply Management (ISM), which suggested the services portion of the economy grew faster than expected last month. ISM said its index of the U.S. services sector came in at 54.5 in March, beating expectations for a reading of 54. Last month, ISM's non-manufacturing survey came it at 53.4.

Stocks were also deeply in the red in Europe, where most major stock indexes were down close to 2% or more. The broad Stoxx Europe 600 was down 1.9%. The German DAX was off 2.6% and the CAC 40 in Paris was down 2.2%.

Shares in Asia were mixed. Japan's Nikkei 225 lost 2.4%, while shares in Hong Kong slid 1.6%. Stocks in mainland China rallied 1.5%.