NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. stocks finished in the red Monday, ending a mostly sour month on a weak note.
The Wall Street adage of "sell in May and go away" got an early start in 2012. Following three months of solid gains, all three major indexes posted their worst monthly returns of the year.
Stocks hit a rough patch in April as investors faced a series of U.S. economic reports suggesting a stalled recovery, including a lousy March jobs report at the start of the month and more worrying signs out of Europe.
"We're seeing a replay of the movie that was showing in 2010 and 2011," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott. "The recent economic data has clearly softened, and concerns over what's going on in Europe are rising again."
In that vein, Monday's modest losses were driven by a duo of weak U.S. economic reports and news that Spain's economy has fallen into recession.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) dropped 15 points, or 0.1%, the S&P 500 (SPX) slipped 5 points, or 0.4%, and the Nasdaq (COMP) lost 23 points, or 0.7%.
Whether or not investors will continue to "sell in May" depends on the upcoming economic news, Luschini said.
"Any strength we've seen this month has been on the back of better-than-expected earnings results, but the sustainability of the market at this point is predicated on an accelerated pace of economic growth," he added.
Investors will likely be cautious this week amid of slew of economic data that's leading up to the all-important jobs report for April, due on Friday. Economists are expecting that 162,000 jobs were added in April, which is an improvement from March. But that pace is still slow compared to job gains in December, January and February -- which exceeded 200,000.
The dollar rose against the euro and the British pound, but was lower against the Japanese yen.
Oil for June delivery fell 6 cents to settle at $104.87 a barrel.
Gold futures for June delivery fell 60 cents to settle at $1,664.20 an ounce.
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