Dow, S&P 500 fall on China data, earnings

US stocks were mostly lower early Monday following weak Chinese economic data and disappointing earnings from Morgan Stanley and some other companies.

About 35 minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 17,180.93, down 35.04 points (0.20 percent).

The broad-based S&P 500 fell 3.72 (0.18 percent) to 2,029.39, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 7.36 (0.15 percent) at 4,894.05.

Most Asian markets fell following Chinese government data that showed the economy grew 6.9 percent in July-September, the slowest pace since 2009.

Morgan Stanley sank 5.7 percent after third-quarter earnings came in at $740 million, dropping more than 50 percent from the year-ago period on weak trading results.

Halliburton fell 1.4 percent. The company reported a $53 million third-quarter loss as oilfield activity remained depressed due to low oil prices.

Drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International fell 4.6 percent and toymaker Hasbro shed 6.6 percent following their earnings reports.

United Continental rose 0.6 percent after announcing it would outline more details about its corporate governance processes later today or Tuesday in light of the emergency hospitalization last week of new chief executive Oscar Munoz.

Weight Watchers International skyrocketed 79.2 percent on news of a partnership with much-admired US television talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who will take a 10 percent stake in the company and plans to "candidly share her experiences" employing its weight-management programs.

PMC-Sierra climbed 14.4 percent after chipmaker Microsemi said it had offered to acquire the data storage and cloud computing company for about $2.2 billion. Microsemi fell 3.3 percent.

The Microsemi offer follows the October 5 announcement that PMC-Sierra reached a deal to be acquired by Skyworks Solutions for $2 billion in cash. Skyworks was flat.

Bond prices were unchanged. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury held steady at 2.03 percent, the same level as Friday, while the 30-year was also flat at 2.88 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.