The stock market has been struggling all year, and investors have done their best to remain patient while waiting for a rebound. Despite having faced numerous head-fakes recently, markets made another attempt to start the week on a positive note. In the premarket session before regular trading began, futures contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI), S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC), and Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) were up roughly 1%.

Mondays often bring big moves for individual stocks, as news from the weekend makes investors more or less excited about the prospects for fundamental businesses. A couple of companies were in the spotlight this Monday, leading to big gains in share prices for Splunk (NASDAQ: SPLK) and Archaea Energy (NYSE: LFG). Below, you'll learn everything you need to know about what's prompting these gains and whether there could be more ahead.

Shares of Splunk were up nearly 10% in premarket trading early Monday morning. Like many companies in the technology space, the data management specialist has seen its stock struggle over the past year. However, it appears that a well-known institutional investor wants to do something to turn Splunk around -- and that investor is putting its money where its mouth is.

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Source Fool.com