Business Highlights

Stocks pare gains; Higher crude boosts energy

NEW YORK (AP) — Investors waiting for earnings reports to flow in traded cautiously Monday, giving up early gains and leaving the market narrowly mixed. The Dow Jones industrials reached a new 2009 trading high, edging closer to 10,000. The Dow closed up 20.86, or 0.2 percent, at 9,885.80.

Volume was light because of the Columbus Day holiday. Bond markets were closed and there were no economic reports.

A weaker dollar and a spike in oil prices above $73 drove energy and materials prices higher, but weakness in technology and industrial shares held the market back. Stocks got an early boost from a better-than-expected profit report from Dutch company Royal Philips Electronics. That sent Britain's leading stock indicator to its highest level in a year.

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American is first woman to win Nobel in economics

WASHINGTON (AP) — Elinor Ostrom became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics, honored along with fellow American Oliver Williamson on Monday for analyzing economic governance — the rules by which people exercise authority in companies and economic systems.