Smooth Ride Resumes For Dow, Up 0.5%

By Peter A. McKay and Donna Kardos Yesalavich

After a brief pause, the stock market resumed its move upward as it approached the end of the quarter in relatively quiet holiday-week trading.
"The market has been acting like a bull market," said Carl Birkelbach, chief executive of Birkelbach Investment Securities. "People have been used to erratic moves, and now that it's back to normal, they think it's abnormal. But this is normal, not up 100 and then down 100."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 45.50 points, or 0.5%, to 10895.86, leaving it with a 5.5% gain for March and a 4.5% gain for the first quarter so far. The gain came after stocks struggled slightly late last week.

The market was led by rallies in Exxon Mobil and Chevron, up 1.1% each. Those bellwethers' gains also boosted the S&P 500's energy sector, which jumped 1.8%, leading the broad index to a 0.6% gain. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.4%, while the Russell 2000 was up 0.5%.
The gains were tempered, however, by weakness in the financial sector after the government unveiled plans to sell 7.7 billion shares in Citigroup, winding down a stake it took on as part of the financial bailout.
Many traders also stayed on the sidelines, awaiting the end of 2010's first quarter on Wednesday and the jobs data due Friday.