Stocks struggle higher in post-holiday trading

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wall Street struggled Tuesday as stocks fought for gains after surging but ultimately disappointing sales over the Christmas weekend.

The Dow Jones industrial average (Charts), the broader S&P 500 index (Charts) rose about 0.4 percent after the market open. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite (Charts) fell about 0.1 percent.

The so-called Santa Claus rally that has lifted stocks this month got sidelined late last week when stocks had trouble finding momentum ahead of the holiday weekend.

U.S. stock markets were closed Monday for Christmas.

All three major gauges were higher in thin trade early Tuesday despite reports that sales for the holiday shopping period grew about 6.6 percent this year - below last year's 8.7 percent increase.

Oil prices also tempered gains after Iran stepped up threats in the wake of U.N. Security Council sanctions on Saturday due to its nuclear program.

Light, sweet crude climbed 21 cents to $62.62 a barrel in electronic trade.

Among stock movers, shares of Telik (Charts) sank after the drugmaker said that its experimental cancer drug failed to improve survival in patients with advanced lung cancer or in patients with ovarian cancer.

Computer security researchers and hackers have found more flaws in Microsoft's (Charts) Vista, the long-awaited update to the Windows operating system, according to a report in Monday's New York Times.

The U.S. Army announced late Friday it had awarded Boeing (Charts) a $650 million contract to rebuild Chinook helicopters and another $406 million to build new ones. Also announced late Friday, Lockheed Martin (Charts) won a $635 million contract to manufacture 216 modification kits for various aircraft for the Turkish Air Force. (Full story.)

With little news on the economic front, investors will be looking ahead to the Commerce Department's report on new home sales due out on Wednesday and existing home sales later in the week.

Treasury prices edged higher early Tuesday, with the yield on the 10-year note slipping to 4.61 percent from 4.62 percent on Friday.

The dollar was little changed versus the euro and the yen.

Markets that were open closed mostly higher in Asia, but some markets were closed there for Boxing Day, the holiday that follows Christmas. And all stock markets in Western Europe also were closed.

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