Market Summary

Wall Street continued its year end rally Monday, starting another holiday shortened week right into the last day on the decade. After being up in futures trading and throughout the day, stocks turned negative in the afternoon before recovering at the closing bell. In a light volume session, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 26.98, or 0.3 percent, to 10,547.08. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 1.30, or 0.1 percent, to 1,127.78, and the Nasdaq composite index advanced 5.39, or 0.2 percent, to 2,291.08. In other trading, the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 0.32, or less than 0.1 percent, to 633.75. The major averages were led by energy and material stocks, which saw a rise in raw material prices on the dollar drop.

Crude gained 72 cents to settle at $78.77 a barrel on the NYMEX as demand for heating oil has drawn down supplies. The technical trend is to test $80 by mid weeks EIA inventory report.

With $118 billion in treasuries being auctioned off this week, a downward pressure is being applied to prices. The yield on the 10 year benchmark ros e5 basis points to 3.85 percent.

It was a quiet news day on the street. And when news is thin, lets just turn to Tiger to spice things up!

Woods Costs Shareholders

A new study from the University of California, Davis, estimates that shareholders of Woods sponsors Nike (NKE) and Gatorade maker PepsiCo (PEP) have lost $5 billion to $12 billion in market value since news broke about the golf champ’s marital infidelity.

In addition to PepsiCo and Nike, the study tracked the performance of Accenture (ACN), AT&T (T), Electronic Arts (ERTS), Procter & Gamble (PG) and TLC Vision (TLCV) and News Corp. (NWSA).

The study looked at stock returns for the 13 trading days between Nov. 27 — the date of the car crash that ignited the Woods scandal — and Dec. 17, a week after he announced his indefinite leave from the sport.

The economists compared the returns of Woods’ sponsors to those of the broader market and of each sponsor’s closest competitor. They also reviewed returns for the four years before the car accident to determine how each sponsor’s performance correlates with the market.