US stocks slip from record highs amid growth concerns ahead of Big Tech earnings

• All three major stock indexes pulled back on Monday after last week's record highs.
• Earnings season ramps up this week with Tesla and Facebook reports on deck.
• The Federal Reserve will hold a two-day policy meeting starting Tuesday.

US stocks sagged Monday, stepping back from record highs at the start of a busy week of corporate earnings led by Big Tech companies, as well as the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting, with investors looking for further insight into its thinking on the economy's recovery from the pandemic.

All three of Wall Street's key benchmarks slipped. Blue-chips tracked by the Dow Jones Industrial Average pulled back after Friday's close above 35,000 for the first time. The indexes posted record highs and weekly gains on Friday following a rout at the start of last week, triggered by worries about rising COVID-19 cases around the world as the highly transmissible Delta variant spreads.

The Fed's two-day meeting that begins Tuesday and ends on Wednesday will likely produce commentary about its outlook on domestic and global economic recovery and investors will gauge when the Fed may begin tapering asset purchases or start raising interest rates.

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

• S&P 500: 4,408.68, down 0.07%
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 35,029.39, down 0.09% (32.16 points)
• Nasdaq Composite: 14,795.20, down 0.27%

Investors have a slew of earnings reports to plow through this week as more than one-third of S&P 500 companies are set to report results. Tesla's report is due after the bell Monday, followed by Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft on Tuesday, and Facebook on Wednesday. The broader tech industry was in focus on Monday, with the Hong Kong's Hang Seng sliding 3.8% on worries about the Chinese government continued crackdown on the industry and others. The Shanghai Composite fell 2.3%.

Around the markets, billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham's firm GMO says stocks are overvalued by every metric.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is facing a legal battle with Volkswagen after rejecting a settlement deal with the German auto giant related to its emissions scandal.

Gold fell 0.9%, to $1,805.39 per ounce. Long-dated US Treasury yields slipped, with the 10-year yield at 1.25%.

Oil prices declined. West Texas Intermediate crude shed 0.3%, to $71.89 per barrel. Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, was off by 3 cents, to $74.07 per barrel.

Bitcoin jumped 9.2%, to $38,542.46. The digital currency rose above $38,000 for the first time in about six weeks, partially on a report that Amazon is considering accepting bitcoin payments.