Stocks were narrowly mixed Monday, after logging their second-straight weekly gain, amid worries over global demand for Apple's iPhone 5 and ahead of a busy week of corporate earnings.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average struggled to hold gains, after logging its second weekly gain. Bank of America led the blue-chip laggards, while Hewlett-Packard climbed. The Dow has been trading in a tight 40-point range.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both traded in the red. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, traded above 13.
Among key S&P sectors, consumer discretionary rose, while techs slipped.
Apple fell more than 3 percent to hover around $500 a share after Japan's Nikkei and the Wall Street Journal reported that the company cut orders for parts on its iPhone 5 due to weak demand. Earlier, shares briefly dipped below $500, a level the company hasn't traded below since last February.
Shares of iPhone component makers also declined, including Cirrus Logic and Qualcomm.
Meanwhile, UBS and several other firms noted that the report of order cuts at Apple appears to be old news from a notification to suppliers last month.
"We think it's old news," said Peter Misek, senior tech analyst at Jefferies. "[The iPhone 5] is selling well, but not as well as hoped…it's still the biggest-selling device of all time at 50 million units, but there were hopes that it would be better than that."
While there are no major economic reports due Monday, several members of the Federal Reserve are scheduled to speak.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will speak at 4 p.m. ET, in his first speech since the Fed's meeting minutes indicated that some policymakers wanted to end the bond buying program before year end.
Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart said in in speech Monday that the Federal Reserve's unconventional monetary policy has limits, and could pose a risk to "market functioning and financial stability." In a speech, San Francisco Fed President John Williams suggested that the rise of uncertainty is constraining economic activity.
Earlier, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans gave an upbeat outlook for the economy in 2013. Evans forecast the U.S. will grow by 2.5 percent in 2013 and 3.5 percent in 2014. The speech was his first since mid-2011 in which he did not make an explicit call for further monetary easing. Evans was less sanguine on unemployment however, forecasting a rate of 7.4 percent in 2013, easing slightly to 7 percent in 2014.
European and Asian shares posted modest gains. In China, a top securities regulator said Beijing could significantly increase its maximum quota for foreign investors investing in mainland China.
Fourth-quarter earnings will kick off in earnest later this week when most major banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America will report results.
(Read More: Bank Earnings: What to Watch For)
Among techs, Hewlett-Packard edged higher after after JPMorgan upgraded its rating on the tech stock to "neutral" from "underweight" and raised its price target to $21 from $15.
Cisco Systems rose after R.W. Baird boosted the company to "outperform" from "neutral," saying the company is executing very well in a challenging macroeconomic environment.
And Facebook gained after Deutsche Bank lifted its rating on the social-networking giant to "buy" from "hold," saying mobile newsfeed ads are providing the company with more revenue momentum than any other firms the brokerage covers.
Meanwhile, Research In Motion soared ahead of the introduction of its BlackBerry 10 later this month. Shares have skyrocketed nearly 40 percent in the last three weeks.