(MONEY Magazine) – The major indexes all advanced in October, and high oil profits and rising oil prices pushed the S&P 500 energy sector from worst performer to best. Among the month's biggest winners was ExxonMobil, which announced the second-largest quarterly profit in U.S. corporate history; shares of the widely held oil giant returned 7.8% for the month. Intel, which has been hammered in its battle with AMD, rebounded 9% on better than expected earnings.

S&P 500 SECTOR AVERAGES

TOP-PERFORMING STOCKS

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S&P 500 RATIOS

P/E 18.6 DIVIDEN YIELD 1.80%

HIGHEST-YIELDING DOW STOCKS

MOST WIDELY HELD STOCKS

NOTES AND SOURCES: Unless otherwise noted, data as of Oct. 26 from Lipper, New York; 877-955-4773. Index levels from Bloomberg. Bond index data from Lehman Brothers. Stock data from Thomson/Baseline. Monthly S&P 500 ratios from Standard & Poor's. Ratios are based on previous four quarters of earnings. Top-Performing Stocks limited to companies with market capitalization of at least $500 million. Most Widely Held Stocks ranked by largest accounts at Merrill Lynch. N.A.: Not applicable or not available. [1] Annualized. [2] Price change only.