Big Oil Leads Big Dow Jones Surge Monday

After closing last week strong, the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened Monday with a powerful triple-digit surge at the opening bell, rising more than 166 points to over 11,435, about a 1.5% gain to start mid-August trading. Big Oil was back, with ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) and Chevron (NYSE:CVX) pumping the Dow up early. Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) returned to positive territory for the year. A front-page article on Barron�s predicting a rebound for Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) had it as the leading stock in early morning trading.

Bank of America was up more than 3%, about 25 cents, to over $7.45 as it announced the sale of its Canadian credit card unit to Toronto Dominion bank for $8.6 billion. Bank of American also announced plans to sell more international credit card operations, keying in on the U.S. market. The worst-performing stock on the Dow for 2011, Bank of America is down about 30% for the month. It has a relative strength index rating of 35, with 30 the standard for when a stock is viewed as being oversold.

Early action had Caterpillar plowing ahead by more than $2 to around $92, a gain of about $2.20. The Big Cat announced a major deal in Indonesia. Down about 1% for the past five days, Caterpillar is lower by almost 20% for the month thanks to disappointing earnings and the gloomy global economic growth outlook.

ExxonMobil gushed more than 2% higher in early buying and selling, picking up about $1.60 a share to over $73.70. Recent articles have oil prices reaching $150 a barrel by spring. ExxonMobil, while down about 3% for the last week, is up more than 23% for the year.

Chevron gained more than $2 to get over $98, a bump of around 2.4% to start the week. Upgraded this morning by Standpoint Research, Chevron was also upgraded on August 11 by Oppenheimer.

Higher sales on the Internet had Home Depot (NYSE:HD) up more than 40 cents, about a 1.4% gain, to over $31. Weak earnings by competitor Lowe�s had Home Depot on the rise. With this morning�s gain, Home Depot is almost back into black for the week. Home Depot has an RSI rating of 39.87.

While traders were overlooking the lowest consumer sentiment rating in 30 years on the Reuters/University of Michigan Index for the overall market, they were not for Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), as it was down more than 30 cents, about 0.7%, to under $49.35, the only stock on the Dow trading lower in early buying and selling. The world�s largest retailer is down about 10% for the quarter with an RSI rating of 39.45. There is now a short float on Wal-Mart of 2.30%.

Jonathan Yates does not own any of the stocks mentioned in this article.