US stocks decline as investors weigh inflation fears and spiking virus cases globally

• US stocks fell on Monday as investors weighed rising inflation fears and a jump in global COVID-19 cases.
• It was also merger Monday on Wall Street as AT&T agreed to merge its media business with Discovery.
• Cryptocurrencies were mostly higher on Monday as they recovered from a weekend sell-off.
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US stocks were lower on Monday as investors continued to weigh rising inflation fears and an uptick in COVID-19 cases was realized in Asian countries like Taiwan and Singapore.

Fueling the surge in inflation expectations has been the actual surge in commodity prices, such as lumber, oil, and copper in recent weeks.

The highest number of S&P 500 companies citing "inflation" on their first-quarter earnings calls has surged to the highest level in over 10 years, according to FactSet.

Here's where US indexes stood at the 9:30 a.m. ET open on Monday:

• S&P 500: 4,169.37, down 0.1%
• Dow Jones industrial average: 34,364.44, down 0.1% (18 points)
• Nasdaq composite: 13,380.53, down 0.4%

Read more: Buy these 25 stocks that have the rare combo of highly reliable profits and cheap valuations, UBS says

It was also merger Monday on Wall Street, as AT&T agreed to merge its media business with Discovery in a deal worth $43 billion. AT&T will divest its TimeWarner unit, which it acquired in 2018 for $85 billion. AT&T surged as much as 3%, and Discovery as much as 20% in early Monday trades.

Bitcoin retraced part of a deep weekend sell-off that was sparked by tweets from Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The cryptocurrency hit support near $42,000, before jumping to the $45,000 level on Monday.

Oil prices were higher. West Texas Intermediate crude rose as much as 0.6%, to $65.74 per barrel. Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, climbed 0.5%, to $69.07 per barrel, at intraday highs.

Gold fell increased as much as 0.7%, to $1,855.47 per ounce.