Blue Chips Set the Pace

Updated from 9:51 a.m. EDT

Stocks traded mixed early Monday as blue chips made a modest recovery from the giant selloff in the previous session with help from positive housing-sector news, even as tech shares remained stuck in the red.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 111 points to 12,321, and the S&P 500 was adding 8 points to 1368. The Nasdaq Composite saw a bit of positive action, but recently gave up 7 points to 2468.

Blue-chip gains piled higher after the National Association of Realtors said pending-home sales shot up 6.3% in April, far better than the economists' consensus for a 1% drop and a March decline of 1%.

Last time out, stocks were caught in a landslide as oil prices ramped higher by more than $10 a barrel to a new record and the Labor Department said the unemployment rate jumped last month. The Dow plummeted nearly 400 points.

Crude oil futures remained at extraordinarily high levels in the new session, but saw a bit of profit-taking amid news that Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali al-Naimi has called Friday's massive gains "unjustified," according to the Saudi Press Agency. Recently, oil was off $3.24 to $135.30 a barrel.

Further, the nationwide average for gas prices at the pump hit the $4 milestone on Sunday, according to AAA, and recently it was at another all-time high of $4.023 a gallon.

The U.S. dollar reversed an early dip as crude took further losses, firming 0.5% against the euro to $1.5690 and climbing 1.1% against the yen at 106.24. Concurrently, gold futures were adding $3.40 to $902.40 an ounce.

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