Another indicator that the recession may be coming to an end is the price of oil companies. Oil and gas producers are the cheapest they have been in the last 14 years, state Rita Nazareth and Michael Tsang of Bloomberg. Recovery in energy shares may signal an end to the demise of the MSCI World Index, which has declined by 42% since October 2007, and the first global contraction in six decades. The news sent the Energy Select Sector Energy Fund (XLE) up 0.2% in morning trading.
Overall all three major U.S. indexes are up in morning trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq both added 0.3%, while the S&P 500 is up about 0.2%.
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Kevin Grewal contributed to this article.