Wall Street wobbles

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks dipped Monday morning as investors stepped back after last week's runup and ahead of some key news on the economy due later in the week.

The Dow Jones industrial average (Charts) lost 0.2 percent in the early going. The broader S&P 500 index (Charts) lost 0.3 percent. The tech-fueled Nasdaq (Charts) composite lost a few points.

Stocks gained last week after comments from Federal Reserve officials suggested the central bank will cut rates again at its policy-meeting on Dec. 11. But the gains occurred at the end of an unusually rough November on Wall Street in which stocks got slammed on worries that the housing and credit market crisis will push the economy into recession.

On Monday, Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren said that U.S. economic growth will be well below its long-term rate over the next two quarters, according to news reports. Rosengren is a voting member of the Fed's 2007 policy committee.

In economic news, the Institute For Supply Management's manufacturing index for November eased to 50.8 in the month, the group reported, versus forecasts for a slip to 50.5. The index stood at 50.9 in October. Any reading over 50 signifies economic expansion.

In another sign of the problems in the housing sector, home builder Lennar has unloaded 11,000 properties for 40 percent of their value, selling them to a joint venture it set up with the real estate arm of Morgan Stanley. Shares of both Lennar (Charts, Fortune 500) and Morgan Stanley (Charts, Fortune 500) slipped in the morning.

On the deal front, Vivendi said Sunday that it plans to buy a big stake in Activision and combine it with Vivendi Games to create a rival company to current leader Electronic Arts (Charts). Shares of video game maker Activision (Charts) rallied 17 percent Monday on the news.

And E*Trade Financial (Charts) slumped 13 percent after Banc of America Securities downgraded the company to "sell" from "neutral" and cut its price target, Briefing.com reported.

Treasury prices rallied, lowering the yield on the 10-year note to 3.89 percent from 3.94 percent late Friday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

In currency trading, the dollar was little changed versus the euro and the yen.

U.S. light crude oil for January delivery fell 34 cents to $88.37 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

COMEX gold for February delivery rose 70 cents to $789.80 an ounce, falling along with other dollar-traded commodities.