Stocks push forward at open

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks gained ground at the start of trading Monday on lower oil prices and talk that the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates again.

The Dow Jones industrial average added 0.3 percent. The Nasdaq composite index was 0.4 percent higher. The Standard & Poor's 500 index advanced 0.2 percent

Lower oil prices helped support the brighter mood. U.S. light crude slid in electronic trading early Monday after crossing the $100 a barrel threshold last week. A barrel of light sweet crude lost 43 cents to $97.48 a barrel.

But while futures here were a bit higher, Asian stocks finished sharply lower on fears of a U.S. recession and weak auto sales in Japan. European markets edged slightly higher in early trading.

On the economic calendar, President Bush is due to speak about the economy later in the day. His speech comes amid word the White House is considering new measures to boost the economy to ward off a recession.

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is also speaking this afternoon. He will discuss the capital markets and the economy in New York.

Several tech stocks are in focus with the start of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the biggest gadget show of the year.

Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) kicked off CES by announcing a string of movie and TV deals, including one to have Walt Disney (DIS, Fortune 500) sell TV shows through the Xbox Live service, and a similar deal with MGM to sell movies that way. It also struck a deal with General Electric (GE, Fortune 500) unit NBC Universal to present online footage from this summer's Olympic games using Microsoft's new Silverlight software rather than the Flash software from Adobe which has been the industry standard.

Sony got a boost after Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500), the largest publisher of DVDs, announced it would use only Sony's Blu-ray disc format for its high definition DVDs, rather than releasing HD titles in both Blu-ray and the competing HD DVD format from Toshiba, as it had been doing. Time Warner is owner of CNNMoney.com.

Napster (NAPS) also said it would start selling music downloads as unprotected MP3 files.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that fast food leader McDonald's (MCD, Fortune 500) is taking aim at Starbucks (SBUX, Fortune 500) with plans to install coffee bars with "baristas" serving cappuccinos, lattes, mochas and the Frappe, a rival to Starbucks' ice-blended Frappuccino, at 14,000 U.S. locations.