U.S. stocks end lower on Monday as investors cashed in last four weeks' rally ahead of the release of first season's earnings reports. Financial and technology sectors led the way down.

Shares of major banks sold off sharply on Monday after a prominent Wall Street analyst said the U.S. government's financial actions may not help as much as expected. Mike Mayo, analyst of Calyon Securities, said new government actions to shore up the financial system may not help as much as expected. Mayo gave "sell" ratings to U.S. Bancorp and SunTrust and "under perform" ratings to many bank giants including Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan.

Technology shares slumped after news report showed that International Business Machines had ended the talk to buy Sun Microsystems. People familiar with the matter said that Sun walked away from a deal with IBM, considering an offer of 9.40 U.S. dollars a share as too low. Sun shares tumbled 22.73 percent.

Cisco Systems Inc. shares fell after it was downgraded by Goldman Sachs analyst from "Buy" to "Neutral," which also weighed on the technology sector.

Aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. will kick off earnings season on Tuesday. Investors preferred to pause from a four-week rally to take profits ahead of first-quarter earnings reports.

The Dow Jones fell 41.74, or 0.52 percent, to 7975.85. Broader indexes also moved lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dipped 7.02, or 0.83 percent, to 835.48; and the Nasdaq lost 15.16, or 0.93percent, to 1,606.71.

(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2009)