Oil Price Surge Helps Keep Dow Industrials Positive But Weighs On Dow Transports

The surge in oil prices is helping keep the Dow Jones Industrial Average positive, but also doing a number on the Dow Jones Transportation Average . Crude oil futures spiked up 3.3% toward a 1 1/2-year high, after some oil producing countries agreed to production cuts. That helped push the stocks of Dow industrials components Exxon Mobil Corp. up $1.97, or 2.2%, and of Chevron Corp. up $1.33, or 1.2%. Those price gains added a combined 23 points to the Dow, which was up 12 points in afternoon trade. The oil price jump also weighed on the shares of the Dow transports' six airline components, American Airlines Group Inc. , Delta Air Lines Inc. , Southwest Airlines Co. , JetBlue Airways Corp. , United Continental Holdings Inc. and Alaska Air Group Inc. . The price declines shaved a combined 60 points off the Dow transports, which was down 102 points. The Dow industrials were now up 13% year to date while the transports were up 24%.

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