Stocks Opened Flat for Columbus Day Holiday

U.S. stocks opened flat on Monday on Monday, as a flood of major earnings reports will give traders much fodder to chew on. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lately fell 38.79 points, or 0.23%, 16,505.31. The S&P 500 was down 8.51 points, or 0.45%, to 1,897.62. The Nasdaq Composite shed 27.46 points, or 0.64%, to 4,248.77.

J.C. Penney has named a Home Depot executive as its next CEO.The department store operator said Monday that
Marvin Ellison, currently executive vice president of stores at Home Depot Inc., will become president in November and CEO next August.

Oil prices skidded Monday, holding near multiyear lows, on indications that global supplies would remain ample. Light, sweet crude for November delivery recently traded down $1.40, or 1.6%, at $84.42 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Apple Inc. said Monday it will roll out the iPhone 6 in 36 new markets, including China and South Africa, by the end of the month.

Jean Tirole, a French economist whose theories about the behavior of large companies underpin modern antitrust regulation, has won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science.