Fears that rising oil prices will strangle the economic recovery and produce a double-dip recession appear overblown.A barrel of oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange recently fetched $78.55 4.2% below the 52-week high of $82 reached last week and 46.7% below the high of $147.27 reached in July 2008.Some analysts fear that oil at $80 a barrel or above will slow and perhaps snuff the recovery. But sharply higher prices appear unlikely in the immediate future.On Thursday ExxonMobil (XOM) the world’s largest oil company and Royal Dutch Shell (RDS-B) the second-largest reported significantly lower earnings due to reduced ...

Among the stocks expected to see active trading on Monday are Barclays, Barnes, Clorox, CNA Financial, Genzyme, HSBC, Humana, Loews, Marathon Oil, Nissan, Panasonic, Shire and Tyson Foods.

The current elected body in Washington DC has been playing whack-a-mole every time optimism sticks its head up. They could have done so much to assuage the public’s terror. Instead they bought General Motors (GRM) and most of Citigroup (C) creating a Vietnam portfolio that I get to pay for. Congress had the former chairman of Goldman Sachs (GS) on the stand and never once asked about potential conflicts of interest. Months later they had AIG’s (AIG) CEO -- and former Goldman board member -- Ed Liddy before them and heckled him endlessly over the $160 million in bonuses ...

The recent push off the market?s bottom has many analysts believing the worst of the latest recession is behind us.

Among the companies whose shares are expected to see active trade in Wednesdayâ??s session are SAP, Ameriprise Financial and BP.