Trading light as investors await quarterly earnings

A light trading day on Wall Street on Monday closed with slight gains for major stock indexes.

With oil prices reaching a 30-month high of $108 a barrel, some investors are waiting for Alcoa Inc. to report its first-quarter earnings April 10, the unofficial start of the earnings season, before making any big moves. Traders hope to see how rising gas prices and other commodity costs are affecting corporate profits.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 23.31 points, or 0.2 percent, to 12,400.03. The S&P 500 index gained less than a point to 1,332.87.

Materials companies gained 0.7 percent, the most of any of the 10 company groups that make up the S&P 500 index, as commodity prices increased. Futures contracts for corn, wheat, and sugar each rose more than 2 percent.

The Nasdaq composite lost less than a point to 2,789.19.

Cash bonuses flow again for Goldman Sachs execs

Goldman Sachs Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein’s $19 million compensation for 2010, almost double the prior year, ended two years in which the firm’s top executives gave up cash bonuses.

Blankfein’s pay included $5.4 million in cash, $12.6 million in restricted stock, a $600,000 salary and about $464,000 in other benefits, a proxy statement from the New York-based firm showed.

Cash awards are back at Goldman Sachs, the fifth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, after a 38 percent drop in annual earnings and a year in which the stock price ended close to where it began. While pay is up from 2008, when Blankfein, 56, and six other senior officers got no bonuses, it remains below Blankfein’s record-setting $67.9 million award for 2007.

Goldman Sachs’ 2010 share performance – a decline of less than half of 1 percent – outstripped competitors including Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.

Maine feeling the impact of rising gasoline prices

A price-monitoring website says average retail gasoline prices in Maine have risen 7.9 cents per gallon in the past week to $3.66 per gallon.

According to MaineGasPrices.com,Sunday’s prices were 82.6 cents per gallon higher than the same day one year ago, and 13.3 cents per gallon higher than a month ago.

The latest average gasoline price is similar to the national average, which has increased 7.4 cents per gallon in the last week to $3.64 per gallon.

Blockbuster mulling bids for troubled chain’s assets

Blockbuster Inc. mulled bids from Carl Icahn and others in an auction process that began Monday in New York that will decide the fate of the troubled video-rental chain.

Potential bidders, lenders and Blockbuster representatives met in several rooms at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York on Monday. A sign on one room said it was reserved for Carl Icahn’s Icahn Acquisition Corp. The billionaire investor did not return a call seeking comment.

The Wall Street Journal reported that liquidation firms Gordon Brothers Group and Hilco Merchant Resources submitted a joint bid for some of Blockbuster’s assets including its DVDs. Gordon Brothers could not be reached. Hilco declined to comment.

Blockbuster spokesman Michael Freitag would not confirm the bidders, saying the process was confidential. The courthouse action wrapped up by 6 p.m. Monday and was expected to resume today.