Wall Street stocks finished decisively lower on Monday despite solid US economic data, in a decline blamed on worries over conflict in the Middle East.

Equities had opened positively following solid retail sales data, amid early hopes that the conflict between Israel and Iran might ebb after a weekend siege by Iran was mostly repelled by air defences.

But Israeli officials kept up the confrontational rhetoric, with Israel's army chief Herzi Halevi vowing a response.

The Dow Jones finished at 37,735, down 0.7 percent after notching a 650-point fall from its peak earlier in the session.

The S&P 500 dropped 1.2 percent to 5,061, while the Nasdaq fell 1.8 percent to 15,885.

Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare pointed to the geopolitical situation as a factor in Monday's drop, but also noted that the retreat follows a period of market strength.

"If you set aside what's happening geopolitically there have been calls for a while now that the market's due for a pullback," O'Hare said.

"So there's an overdue period of consolidation kicking in here, which has been helped along by the geopolitical uncertainty, rising interest rates, and again, the technical deterioration in the market."

Among individual companies, Goldman Sachs rose 2.9 percent after reporting better-than-expected profits on a strong performance across most businesses.

Tesla slumped 5.6 percent after Elon Musk's electric vehicle company announced it was cutting more than 10 percent of its global headcount amid rising competition for EVs.

Salesforce plunged 7.3 percent following reports it is in talks to buy technology company Informatica. Informatica lost 6.4 percent.

Trump Media & Technology Group, the social media company associated with the ex-president and current US Republican White House nominee, dove 18.4 percent after announcing plans to issue more shares. (AFP)