What You Need to Know About the Dow's Monday Rally

All three market indices rose slightly on Monday.

Index	Change	Ending Value
Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEX: ^DJI  )	+32.77 [+0.27%]	12,359.92
Nasdaq (IXIC)	+2.34 [+0.09%]	2,676.56
S&P 500 (INDEX: ^GSPC  )	+2.89 [+0.23%]	1,280.70

Alcoa (NYSE: AA  ) , traditionally the first Dow stock to report during earnings season, announced a small fourth-quarter loss. But what caught my eye was its announcement that it expects global demand for aluminum to increase 7% this year.

That continues the string of economic data suggesting that manufacturing demand may be remaining resilient despite the crisis in Europe. Last week saw reasonably strong December jobs figures -- 200,000 net jobs gained -- as well as upbeat sales reports from each of the "Big 3" automakers.

Alcoa's projection is good news for Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT  ) and General Electric (NYSE: GE  ) , each of which rose more than 1% to put them among today's top Dow gainers. Conglomerates, manufacturing, energy, and transportation had the biggest gains today.

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