NEW YORK (TheStreet) Stocks were eking out modest gains on Monday as Wall Street celebrated the sixth anniversary of the bull market and crude oil hovered just under $50 a barrel. The S&P 500 was up 0.19%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.44%, and the Nasdaq climbed 0.14%. The bull market officially hit the six-year mark on Monday, marking the day the S&P 500 closed at 676 and ending the bear market for stocks. Since March 2009, the benchmark index has surged more than 200% in the fourth-longest bull market ever. Crude oil prices were higher with West Texas Intermediate up 0.56% to $49.93 a barrel. Over the weekend, OPEC Secretary-General Abdalla El-Badri said he expects the global oil market to rebalance by the second half of the year as demand grows and producers slash output. It may be a new week but the crude complex is weighing up the same issues immediately rising production and inventories vs. the potential for rising demand and falling supplies, said Matt Smith, commodity analyst at Schneider Electric. Big oilers Exxon Mobil. Chevron. BP and Total were all higher, while the Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF climbed 0.8%. Tech stocks gave a boost to markets, led by Apple. which climbed 1% ahead of its Apple Watch event on Monday. The company is expected to outline details such as price and launch date of the gadget at the highly anticipated event. Twitter was also higher, up 1.7%, after JPMorgan reiterated an overweight rating on the stock with a $67 price target. Analyst Doug Anmuth said upcoming product launches such as video and distribution deals would be a boon to usage and ad revenue. The mood was more dour overseas. European markets were lower as the Eurogroup meets in Brussels to discuss Greeces future. The nations list of austerity measures has been criticised as lacking but without approval from eurozone lenders the country will likely run out of bailout money this month. The European Central Bank begins its quantitative-easing program on Monday, in which it will buy approximately 60 billion euros ($66 billion) in assets every month for 18 months. The program was implemented to address flagging economic growth across the eurozone. Japans Nikkei closed nearly 1% lower after GDP revisions came in far lower than initially thought. The worlds third-largest economy grew 1.5% over the December-ended quarter, lower than a preliminary reading of 2.2%. General Motors was up more than 2% after announcing a $5 billion stock buyback program and raising its quarterly dividend to 36 cents a share from 30 cents. Tesla shares was down 2% after The Wall Street Journal reported planned job cuts in China. The automaker is facing tepid demand in the worlds largest car market. Retail real estate trust Macerich spiked 5.8% on news Simon Property had made an offer of $91 a share or $22.4 billion, a 30% premium to prices in November before Simon Property announced a stake in the company. Simon Property shares were slightly higher. Alcoa shares were down 4.7% after the company agreed to acquire RTI International in an all-stock deal worth $1.5 billion. RTI surged 40.3%. McDonalds was slightly higher even after global comparable store sales slid 1.7% in February, far wider than an expected 0.3% decline. The company said a 4% drop in U.S. sales was due to ongoing aggressive activity in the fast food sector.

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