Wall Street Rallies on Strong Holiday Sales

A very strong weekend of holiday shopping sparked optimism on Wall Street Monday. According to the National Retail Federation, retailers notched $52.4 billion in sales over the weekend, which represents a 16.4% rise over last year. Traders welcomed the good news and pushed up stock prices to start the week. Prior to Monday's rally, stocks had fell for 7 straight sessions, including 5% last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 291 points to close at 11,523. The blue-chip average traded in a range between 11,232 and 11,562. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF

surged 2.90% to close at $119.71. Volume was light despite the rally, with only 194 million SPY shares trading hands compared to a 3-month daily average of 269 million. The PowerShares QQQ Trust ETF

, which tracks the performance of the Nasdaq 100, jumped 3.48% to $54.72. The move higher pushed the QQQ back into positive territory for the year, with a gain of 0.48%. Crude oil followed stock prices higher on Monday. NYMEX crude contracts rose 1.17% to $97.90 while ICE Brent contracts surged 2.18% to $108.72. The United States Oil Fund ETF

added 1.86% and closed at $37.85. Gold also had a strong session. COMEX gold futures jumped 1.55% to $1,714.70. The SPDR Gold Trust ETF

gained 1.98% to $166.63 in New York Stock Exchange trading. Silver futures added 3.42% to $32.155 on the day. Treasuries opened the session lower, but rallied throughout the day despite the strong move higher in risk assets. The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF

closed 0.04% lower at $120.74. The yield on the 10-Year Note was essentially flat at 1.97%. The U.S. Dollar fell amid the move into risk assets. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF

, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of foreign currencies, lost 0.40% to $22.33. The closely watched EUR/USD pair fell 0.33% to $1.3304.