The Dow climbed nearly 100 points Monday on low volume as a rally in the commodities complex spilled over onto Wall Street, allowing the markets to bounce back from last week's disappointing performance. 

Today’s Markets

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 90.99 points, or 1.08%, to 8529.38, the Standard & Poor's 500 added 8.33 points, or 0.91%, to 927.23 and the Nasdaq Composite picked up 5.84 points, or 0.32%, to 1844.06. The consumer-friendly FOX 50 gained 7.96 points, or 1.18%, to 684.60.

While Monday’s session saw solid gains for stocks, analysts urged not to read too much into the move as it was marked by ridiculously low volume due to the holiday-shortened trading week. Volume on the New York Stock Exchange barely cracked 1 billion shares. 

“Generally speaking, as you get into the holidays things seem to be dropping off in volume, which allows the direction to be magnified. It’s probably going to be more of the same,” said Richard Sparks, senior equities analyst at Schaeffer’s Investment Research. “I don’t see us moving in either direction as we get through the end of the week.”

Lacking any major economic or earnings reports, the markets took their cues Monday from the commodity and overseas markets, each of which were on the rise.

Almost all 30 components of the Dow closed in the green, led by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Bank of America (BAC). The only blue-chip stock that ended in the red was aluminum titan Alcoa (AA), which was hurt by an analyst downgrade. 

The Nasdaq Composite lagged behind the broader markets as some tech stocks like BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIMM) and Logitech (LOGI) struggled. 

Wall Street rallied around solid gains in the commodity markets, where crude oil enjoyed its biggest one-day rally since early June. Boosted by a Nigerian militant attack, crude settled up $2.33 per barrel, or 3.37%, to $71.49. While a negative for cash-strapped consumers, the higher oil prices helped send the energy sector 1% higher, led by stocks like ExxonMobil (XOM) and Murphy Oil (MUR).

Industrial metals also rose, with benchmark copper futures rising by 0.8% as copper inventories fell for a 37th straight day, according to the London Metals Exchange. That helped spur buying in basic material stocks like Rio Tinto (RTP) and BH Billiton (BHP). 

The solid gains on Wall Street come after the markets capped off their second-straight weekly loss with a mixed picture on Friday. The two-week slide, the Dow’s first since early March, shaved 4% off the blue chips’ three-month surge. In recent weeks, the bears have successfully argued that red-hot stocks had gotten ahead of the still-weak economy.

Despite the recent struggles, it’s been a stellar second quarter for Wall Street as the Dow has jumped 11% and is on track for its biggest quarterly percentage gain since 2003. The Nasdaq Composite has surged more than 20%, putting it on pace to break a string of three-straight losing quarters.

“The market is trying to digest the gains that have occurred over the past two or three months, which I think is a positive. We’re really not giving back much of them,” said Sparks.

Due in part to these huge gains, market strategists expect to see some window-dressing at the end of the quarter as portfolio managers look to scoop up some of the period's strongest performers. 

Corporate Movers

Ford (F) predicted June sales will decline by less than 20% as the auto maker's chief sales analyst said the worst could be over for the U.S. economy and the depressed auto market. With that in mind, Ford also upped its third-quarter production targets in the U.S. for a second time.

Watson Wyatt World Wide (WW) and Towers Perrin Forster & Crosby unveiled plans to merge in an all-stock deal worth $3.5 billion. The merger between the two consulting companies will create the world’s largest employee-benefits consultancy.

Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs is "back to work," a spokesman for the tech giant said. Jobs, who had been on leave since the end of January, will be at Apple headquarters a few days a week but will work from home for the remaining days.

Alcoa (AA) saw its shares tumble after the company was downgraded by FBR Capital Markets to "underperform" from "market perform." Analysts cited valuation and also lowered their price target to $8 from $8.50. 

Dell (DELL) is developing a pocket-sized Internet device that is slightly larger than Apple’s iPod Touch and will use Google’s (GOOG) Android software, The Wall Street Journal reported.

UBS (UBS) is set to pay up to $4.62 billion to the U.S. to settle claims the Swiss banking giant helped thousands of Americans hide almost $15 billion from Uncle Sam, Swiss newspaper Sonntag reported.

Ball Corp. (BLL) was upgraded to “outperform” from “neutral” by Baird, sending the packaging company’s stock jumping. The upgrade also helped lift other container and packaging stocks such as Pactiv (PTV) and Sealed Air (SEE).

Global Markets

London’s FTSE 100 rose 1.25% to 4294.03, France’s CAC 40 advanced 2.04% to 3193.68 and Germany's DAX gained 2.27% to 4885.09. 

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.95% to 9783.47 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.39% to 18528.51 and China's Shanghai Composite jumped 1.61% to 2975.31.