Dow falls 222 points as markets end May in the red

May 31 (UPI) -- U.S. markets fell Tuesday to close out May after a day off for the Memorial Day holiday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 222.84, or 0.67%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.63% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.41%.

With Tuesday's losses, the Dow and S&P 500 closed the month mostly flat, following a rally last week that saw them break multi-week losing streaks, while the Nasdaq lost 2.1% for the month.

"The market is digesting the sharp rally late last week and trying to figure out its footing," Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group said.

"We're still far from being out of the woods here in terms of the major overhangs, being inflation, monetary tightening and rising rates."

Stocks, however, remained far from their record highs, with the Dow having fallen 10.7%, the S&P 500 dropping 14.3% and the Nasdaq declining 25.5% this year.

Oil futures rose on the heels of an agreement by the European Union to stop purchases of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia, with the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate Crude oil climbing 3.6% to $118.70, while Brent crude, the international benchmark, gained 3.7% to $123.83.

The energy sector dragged down the S&P 500 with Schulmberger falling 4.32% and Chevron declining 2.03%.

Major tech stocks helped to soften some of the losses Tuesday, with Amazon rising 4.4% and Google parent, Alphabet, gaining 1.29%.

Investors are expected to look to the May jobs report due Friday, as well as earnings from companies such as Salesforce, GameStop, Chewy and HP.