Dog days begin to fade

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Investors will wait until Thursday for a series of manufacturing reports and until Friday for a government report on U.S. durable goods.

Until then, they'll have to be content with news on how the technology sector is still thrashing about, trying to figure out how to squeeze big bucks out of the Internet.

While figuring that out, investors will note that stocks of two of the Internet's most highly anticipated firms, Facebook and Groupon, are floundering, hitting record lows.

At Groupon, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, investors are headed for the exits, including a few early investors who bought in before the company went public.

Facebook shares have fallen under $20 per share, prompting analysts to question whether 28-year-old Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg can continue to run the company.

A third major Internet firm, gaming Web site Zynga Inc., is also struggling, with share prices off 70 percent since it went public in December.

Investors are simply looking at business fundamentals, which is to say profits.

At Groupon, the business model is under scrutiny because what looked reassuring at first -- having two revenue streams -- now looks like two ways to increase risks.

Facebook is dealing with a seismic shift in the digital landscape, which is becoming more mobile every day and Zynga is simply in a hugely competitive industry, the gaming industry, in which an unexpected breakout game like Angry Birds can upset the balance of power. That would be the equivalent of the Beatles having to compete with garage bands. Give a hacker a little motivation and the Internet can turn on its ear.

In Europe, summer vacations are coming to an end, which means Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras can resume his road show to convince other European leaders to relax the terms of the international bailout that is keeping Greece in the eurozone, but on its knees.

Samaras is expected to meet this week with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and the head of the eurozone's financial group Jean-Claude Juncker, The New York Times reported.

Yes, the lull in panic-driven economic headlines from Europe had more to do with leaders taking vacations than everyone getting on the same page.

Germany has already signaled a reluctance to go along with a request for a two-year extension on Greece meeting certain fiscal targets or to relax other terms of a bailout agreement. This has already set the stage for a second round of meetings with German leaders, and Hollande in line for a trip to Berlin.

Tradeweb reports that yields on benchmark 10-year bonds in Madrid were down 0.25 percentage points to 6.18 percent, while benchmark bonds in Rome were at 5.72 percent, down 0.07 percentage points.

In international markets Monday, the Nikkei 225 index in Japan rose 0.86 percent and the Shanghai composite index in China gave up 0.37 percent. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong added 0.71 percent and the Sensex in India rose 0.19 percent.

The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia gained 0.79 percent.

In midday trading in Europe, the FTSE 100 index in Britain was flat, off 0.01 percent while the DAX 30 in Germany rose 0.15 percent. The CAC 40 in France slipped 0.13 percent and the Stoxx Europe 600 was off 0.14 percent.