NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks ended higher Monday, led by heavy-industry issues such as aluminum producer Alcoa, as investors perceived that last week's sell-off had made some traditional manufacturing companies attractive.
"Big blue-chip Dow names are so oversold, they're starting to attract some money away from the Nasdaq," said Harry Laubscher, market analyst at Tucker Anthony.
Based on early and unofficial data, the Dow Jones industrial average closed up 94.63 points, or 0.91 percent, at 10,519.84. The 30-stock average lost more than 500 points last week, putting it in what is known as a "correction" as it fell more than 10 percent from its closing high of 11,722.98 on 14 January.
"This is a little bit of a resurrection of old economy stocks and some more profit-taking in the Nasdaq," said Guy Truicko, portfolio manager at Unity Management in Garden City, New York. "I don't think it is going to last very long. Technology is where the earnings are."
The Nasdaq Composite Index finished up 23.11 points, or 0.53 percent, at 4,418.56 after spending much of the day in negative territory. The Standard & Poor's 500 ended up 2.82 points, or 0.20 percent, at 1,389.94.
Among the heavy-industry companies in the Dow, United Technologies (UTX) rose 1-15/16 to 50-5/16 and Caterpillar (CAT) gained 2-5/8 to 38-3/8. Alcoa (AA) gained 4-9/16 to 72-1/4.
Interest rate-sensitive financial stocks were mostly lower at the start of a week that promised several important economic reports and a Congressional appearance by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan on Thursday.
Banking group J.P. Morgan (JPM) eased 1/2 to 112-1/8 and Citigroup (C) slipped 1-3/16 to 52-3/4.
Investors, who were on interest-rate alert ahead of Greenspan's comments, did not seem too fazed by the news that crude oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange broke above $30 a barrel, the highest since the Gulf War in January 1991.
Ned Collins, head of trading at Daiwa Securities America, said the market might not be too affected by the oil news, which could indicate a future increase in consumer prices, because some expect the price of oil to fall again.
In general, Internet and healthcare companies were down while utilities, auto makers and coal companies advanced.
Buyouts fueled some of the gains. Shares of business software provider Computer Associates International (CA) slipped 7/16 to 69-5/16 after saying it would pay $4 billion in stock for business software developer Sterling Software. Sterling (SSW) rose 1-13/16 to 36-1/4.
Shares of health care information company Healtheon/WebMD (HLTH) rose 1-5/8 to 56-5/8 after it announced a deal to buy Medical Manager Corp. and a subsidiary for $7.6 billion in stock to expand in the online health industry.
