NEW YORK — Easing concerns about debt problems overseas and a $31 billion takeover deal by Exxon Mobil nudged major stock indexes to highs for the year Monday.
The market climbed after the Middle Eastern city-state of Abu Dhabi extended $10 billion to nearby Dubai to help the emirate make debt payments. Analysts have been concerned that a cash crunch in the former boomtown could send ripples through global credit markets.
The market’s advance was uneven after Exxon Mobil said it would acquire XTO Energy. The move will help Ex xon tap into the growing supply of natural gas in the U.S. and could signal that more deals are afoot in the energy industry.
A 4.3 percent drop in shares of Exxon held the Dow Jones industrial average to more modest gains than other indexes and shaved about $2 billion off the value of Exxon’s all- stock bid for XTO. The Dow added 0.3 percent, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 0.7 percent.
Financial stocks rose after Citigroup said it would repay the $20 billion it received last year from the government’s financial-rescue program.
The government also will sell its 34 percent stake in the company. Wells Fargo also announced it will repay the $25 billion it owes the government.
The news came just days after Bank of America repaid the $45 billion in bailout money it owed taxpayers.
The day’s advance was orderly and signaled that traders remain cautious. A big run in stocks that began in March has slowed in the past month as investors look to lock in some of their gains from 2009 and determine how to position themselves for the new year.
The Dow rose 29.55, or 0.3 percent, to 10,501.05, its highest close since Oct. 1, 2008. The S&P 500 rose 7.70, or 0.7 percent, to 1,114.11, its highest finish since Oct. 2, 2008. The Nasdaq composite rose 21.79, or 1 percent, to 2,212.10.
The Exxon deal is the largest for the U.S. energy sector in at least four years and Ex xon’s biggest acquisition since it bought Mobil for $75 billion in 1999.
The technology to unlock natural gas from tight rock formations has advanced so rapidly that energy experts have raised their estimates of how much fuel is available by 35 percent in two years.
The emergence of massive supplies of natural gas in the U.S. coincides with the nation’s focus on cutting emissions.
The newfound supply and looming climate legislation have been cited by utilities this year as they have shuttered old coal-fired power plants and scrapped plans to build new ones.
Exxon Mobil and XTO have presences in the Piceance Basin in western Colorado.
Climate legislation would put utilities in the cross hairs, and many are aggressively seeking new fuels such as natural gas to minimize the economic hit.
“From the outside view, it does look like this move makes much more sense in a world where there’s carbon policy because that ensures a growing market for natural gas,” said Amy Jaffe, a fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.
