U.S. stocks finished lower on Monday, as investors remained focused on oil prices, while the U.S. government officially hit its legal borrowing limit. In world markets, European stocks ended lower, led by the CAC 40 in France falling 0.7 percent. Asian markets also ended lower, led by the Hang Seng in Hong Kong falling 1.4 percent. In U.S. economic news, The United States reached the legal limit on its debt Monday, the Treasury Department said. The Treasury issued $72 billion in bonds and notes, which pushed the country right up to its $14.294 trillion debt ceiling. Now, the Treasury is unable to access bond markets, but the department says it can avoid default on U.S. debt servicing until August 2 by drawing money from other sources to pay its obligations. The Treasury Department separately said that China, the largest holder of U.S. debt, reduced its holdings for a fifth consecutive month in April, though total foreign holdings of U.S. securities increased by $4.9 billion to $4.48 trillion. Meanwhile, the U.S. National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) said its index of industry sentiment for May was unchanged at 16, where it has been for six of the last seven months. A reading below 50 indicates negative sentiment about the market, and the index has not been above that level since April 2006. The U.S. dollar fell versus the euro and versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for June delivery fell $2.28 to $97.37 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures fell $3 to $1,490.60 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 47.38, or 0.4 percent, to 12,548.37. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 8.3, or 0.6 percent, to 1,329.47. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 46.16, or 1.6 percent, to 2,782.31.
