The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 50.72 points (0.39 per cent) to 13,007.48 around 1340 GMT (9.40pm Singapore time) and the tech-dominated Nasdaq composite dropped 4.13 points (0.17 per cent) to 2,472.86.

The broad-market Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 index slid 3.98 points (0.28 per cent) to 1,409.92.

Wall Street shares ended mixed on Friday as investors closed out a positive week and a better-than-expected job losses report eased fears of a deep downturn for the US economy.

The blue-chip Dow gained 0.37 per cent, recouping nearly all its losses for 2008.

The Nasdaq slipped 0.15 percent and the broad-market S&P 500 edged up 0.32 per cent.

'The major indicators we track are suggesting that the rally from the January and March lows still has legs,' said Todd Salamone, at Shaeffer's Investment Research.

'Speed bumps could occur along the way, but we would view any pullbacks as buying opportunities,' he said.

On Saturday, Microsoft yanked its buyout offer for Yahoo, saying the struggling Internet pioneer refused to budge on price despite the software giant's increase in its offer to 33 dollars a share, from an initial 31 dollars on Feb 1.

Experts were surprised that Yahoo did not accept what was considered a generous offer and predict that its stock price, bereft of the prop of Microsoft's bid, will plunge even further.

'Microsoft did the smart thing - they walked,' Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle said over the weekend.

'Yahoo's stock price is going to come down like a rock on Monday.' -- AFP