U.S. stocks lean lower at start

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- U.S. stocks leaned lower at the start of trading Monday as investors considered the weakened economy and a possible battle over Yahoo.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 0.2 percent. The Nasdaq composite index was down by 0.1 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was 0.3 percent lower.

Among the companies influencing the markets at Monday's open:

Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500): Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500)'s proposed $45 billion acquisition of the search engine company drew criticism from search leader Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), which says any deal would be a threat to the openness and innovation of the Internet. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Google CEO Eric Schmidt also called Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to offer his company's help in any effort to thwart the Microsoft bid.

Pfizer (PFE, Fortune 500) The drugmaker suffered a setback late Friday when the Food and Drug Administration announced it had received reports of 37 suicides and more than 400 reports of suicidal behavior in connection with its anti-smoking drug Chantix.

Anheuser-Busch (BUD, Fortune 500): Its commercial for its Budweiser brand that featured one of the brewer's trademark Clydesdales being "trained" by a Dalmatian came in as the most popular in online polling on one site measuring Super Bowl ad popularity.

Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM, Fortune 500), Wendy's (WEN): The food processor and the fast-food purveyor both reported higher earnings.

After the open, the Commerce Department releases a report on December factory orders. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com are expecting a 2% rise in orders, versus the 1.5% gain in November.

In global trade, Asian stocks ended higher, while European stocks were up in afternoon trading.