Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock-index futures rose as oil traded near $65 a barrel, lifting shares of Exxon Mobil Corp.

``Oil companies are undervalued and underpriced relative to the oil price today,'' said Bob Parker, deputy chairman of Credit Suisse Asset Management in London, which oversees $335 billion.

Shares of Dell Inc., the world's biggest maker of personal computers, gained before the company reports earnings.

Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures expiring next month added 1 to 1234.80 as of 7:55 a.m. in New York. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures increased 16 to 10,640. Nasdaq-100 Index futures rose 1.50 to 1597.50.

Crude for September delivery climbed to a record $65.30 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It last traded down 0.1 percent to $64.84.

The rally in oil has contributed to a 31 percent surge this year in an index of energy stocks for the best performance among 10 industry groups in the S&P 500. Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, rose 30 cents today to $60.20 on the Inet ATS trading system.

While higher oil helped profit at Exxon jump 32 percent in the second quarter, it has increased costs for technology companies. A gauge of computer-related shares is down 0.8 percent this year, while the S&P 500 has added 1.4 percent.

Dell gained 11 cents to $39.84 in Germany. The company may say today that second-quarter profit rose to $954 million, or 38 cents a share, from $799 million, or 31 cents, a year earlier, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. Dell has declined 5.7 percent this year.

Target, Kohl's

Target Corp. and Kohl's Corp. are among six S&P 500 companies scheduled to release results today. About 90 percent of companies in the benchmark have reported results for the most recent quarter. Profit has jumped 13.7 percent on average, compared with analysts' estimates of 8.2 percent at the beginning of the period, according to a Thomson survey.

``We have good earnings growth,'' said Thor Udenaes, who manages $1 billion including U.S. stocks at SEB Asset Management in Stockholm.

Yahoo! Inc. advanced 11 cents to $34.30. The owner of the most-visited Web site will pay $1 billion in cash for a 40 percent stake in Alibaba.com, China's biggest online retailer, according to a joint statement from the companies. It marks the biggest investment by an overseas company in China's Internet market, the world's second largest.

Economic Reports

A Commerce Department report today probably will show retail sales rose the most in a year last month as consumers flocked to car dealers to take advantage of discounts. Sales increased 2.1 percent, according to economists in a Bloomberg News survey, after rising 1.7 percent in June.

Excluding auto dealers, sales probably rose 0.6 percent in July, following an increase of 0.7 percent the previous month.

Initial unemployment claims likely rose to 315,000 for the week ended Aug. 6, up from 312,000 the prior week, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Both the retails sales and jobs reports are expected at 8:30 a.m. in Washington.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Levy in New York at alevy5@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 11, 2005 07:56 EDT