Holiday Sales Push Stocks Higher
News at a Glance

* Lift at open: Stocks slightly higher on light volume
* Retailer cheer: Data show boost in holiday spending
* Kindle on the rise: The electronic reader boosts Amazon
* Bank update: RBS preps for asset sales

The Lowdown

Retailers helped to lift stocks early Monday on optimism for holiday sales.
Click here to find out more!

By 12:30 p.m., the Dow Jones Industrial Average had risen 14 points to 10,534. The S&P 500 had added 1 point, to 1127, the Nasdaq tacked on 5 points, to 2291.

Stocks showed modest upside on light trading as investors eyed the end of the year with retailers helping to support broader gains. Macys (M: 17.95*, +0.38, +2.16%), JC Penny (JCP: 27.42*, +0.40, +1.48%), Nordstrom (JWN: 37.97*, +0.60, +1.60%) and WalMart (WMT: 53.73*, +0.13, +0.24%) were all trading higher early Monday.

Those advances come as MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse showed retail sales rose 3.6% from Nov. 1 through Christmas Eve, vs. a 2.3% decline a year prior.

Amazon (AMZN: 140.89*, +2.42, +1.74%) was also more than 2% higher in early trading after reporting that the Kindle has become the most-gifted item in the online retailer’s history. On Christmas day customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books for the first time ever, the retailer said.

While retailers were higher, airlines were feeling pressure, with Delta (DAL: 11.22*, -0.55, -4.67%) shares falling more than 4% after a man on a watch list boarded a Delta-owned Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit with an explosive hidden on his body and attempted to set off the device before being stopped by other passengers on Christmas Day.

Also weighing on the airlines, winter storms battered the Midwest over the holiday weekend, a week after the Northeast experienced a string of winter-weather related delays.

The economic calendar is light for Monday, but will pick up on Tuesday with consumer confidence and housing data.

Commodities were mixed with crude oil adding 74 cents to $78.79 a barrel and gold edging down a penny, to $1,104 an ounce.