"We're due for some sort of pullback, but the Fed's still pushing $85 billion of new liquidity into the market every month and despite the State of the Union and some of the other bumps we've got coming–political uncertainty is much lower than it was six weeks ago," said Michael Jones, CIO of Riverfront Investment Group.
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President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver his annual State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday.
Tesla traded lower following a review report from the New York Times claiming the car's battery drained much quicker than promised in cold weather. Meanwhile, Tesla's CEO Elon Musk said the article on Tesla's range in cold weather is "fake," adding that the reviewer's vehicle logs show that he "didn't actually charge [the battery] to max and took a long detour."
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals soared after the biotechnology company said Sanofi intends to buy Regeneron's common stock.
Google declined after executive chairman Eric Schmidt said he is is selling about 42 percent of his stake in the company, or about 3.2 million shares over a one-year period.
Meanwhile, the Nasdaq's decline was partly offset by gains in Apple, after a report that the iPhone maker is testing a wristwatch-like device, according to the New York Times.
Cisco edged higher after Mizuho raised its target price on the tech bellwether to $25 from $23. The networking-equipment company is scheduled to post quarterly earnings on Wednesday.
Nike rallied after JPMorgan raised its rating on the sports-apparel retailer to "overweight" from "neutral" and boosted its target price to $64 from $50.
US Airways and AMR are within a week to announcing an $11 billion merger that would create the world's largest airline, according to a Reuters report, citing sources familiar with the matter.