Tech stocks were the standouts in an otherwise sluggish day of trading on Monday, as investors gear up for the arrival of the heart of earnings reporting season. Apple, Intel, and several chip makers jumped more than 2 percent, and technology stocks in the S&P 500 climbed 1.2 percent. But the other 10 sectors that make up the index were evenly split between gainers and losers, and none moved by more than 0.5 percent. More action may arrive in the next two weeks, when a tidal wave of earnings reports is on the schedule. Roughly three-fifths of S&P 500 companies are set to update investors on how much profit they made from April through June, and expectations are generally low. On the winning end Monday was Halliburton, which reported a bigger profit than Wall Street expected and surged 9.1 percent for the biggest gain in the S&P 500. Health care company DaVita jumped 4.7 percent after it raised its profit forecast for this year and gave a preliminary report on its second-quarter results. The price of crude oil also continued to climb amid heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf area. Iran on Monday announced the arrest of 17 people it accused of spying for the United States, something Trump called ‘‘totally false.’’ On Friday, Iran said it seized a British oil tanker.