Blue Chips Ease From Day's Gains

Updated from 12:21 p.m. EDT

Stocks traded mixed Monday as blue chips made a modest recovery from the previous session's giant selloff, even as tech shares remained stuck in the red.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 89 points, or 0.7%, to 12,299, and the S&P 500 was adding 5 points, or 0.4%, to 1366. The Nasdaq Composite gave up 17 points, or 0.7%, to 2458 as big tech names Cisco (CSCO Quote), Apple (AAPL Quote) and Google (GOOG Quote) saw weakness.

"Considering what happened last week, I have to say that this is a pretty poor bounce-back," said Phillip Roth, chief technical market analyst with Miller Tabak. Referring to a longer-term rebound in equities over the past three months, he added, "The bear market rally looks over."

Crude oil, which ramped higher by more than $10 a barrel in the last session and helped yank down the Dow by 400 points, remained at extraordinarily high levels today. Still, futures 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. Futures recently were off $2.36 to $136.18 a barrel.

The U.S. dollar reversed an early dip, firming 0.4% against the euro to $1.5696 and climbing 1.1% against the yen at 106.14, as crude held in negative territory,

Even so, energy names were doing well, with oil-and-gas giants Exxon Mobil (XOM Quote) and Chevron (CVX Quote) adding 2.5% and 1.5%, respectively. BP (BP Quote) bumped up 2.4%.

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