Some soft spots persist, but the market inches upward on a positive report about e-commerce sales.
Stocks continued a mild recovery Monday morning, extending Friday's gains. The Nasdaq gained 0.72 percent, or 20.97, to 2925.35, and the Standard 100 gained 0.61 percent, or 4.55 points, to 748.67. Although retail sales were generally flat during the summer months, online sales soared. This is the best performance for e-commerce since the government began collecting this data a year ago. The company also announced plans to cut its staff by 30 percent.