August 4, 2014: Markets opened higher Monday morning on the strength of technology and consumer discretionary stocks. There was no economic data published today and the Dow 30 blue chips posted the smallest gain of the three major indexes. Shortly before closing today the DJIA traded up 0.54% for the day, the S&P 500 traded up 0.82%, and the Nasdaq Composite traded up 0.86%.

The stock posting the biggest percentage gain today was The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) which traded up 2.36% at $87.39 today in a 52-week range of $60.41 to $87.63. Volume was about 10% above the daily average of around 6 million shares traded. Disney’s Buena Vista Studios opened “Guardians of the Galaxy” over the weekend to a whopping $94 million in ticket sales.

Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) traded up 1.52% at $100.30. The stock’s 52-week range is $84.79 to $104.76. Share volume was about 10% below the daily average of around 9.1 million shares traded. There was no specific news on the company today, but we think that Exxon may be a good value at its current price.

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) traded up 1.45% today at $101.96 in a 52-week range of $81.46 to $111.46. Volume was about equal to the daily average of around 3.7 million shares. Caterpillar had no news today.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) traded higher by 1.28% at $43.41 today. The stock’s 52-week range is $30.84 to $45.71. Volume was about 15% below the daily average of around 29 million shares traded. The company cut some of its discount plans on its cloud services, but that hardly seems to justify the share price jump.

Of the Dow 30 stocks 25 are set to close higher today and 5 are poised to close lower.

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