US stocks up as busy earnings week kicks off

New York - US stocks finished higher on Monday as solid earnings reports from Halliburton and others kicked off the busiest week of the quarterly earnings season.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 40.71 (0.25%) to 16,449.25.

The broad-based S&P 500 rose 7.04 (0.38%) to 1,871.89, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index increased 26.03 (0.64%) to 4,121.55.

Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital, said earnings have so far been solid enough to steady the market. "So far the disappointments have been quite limited."

Of the firms in the S&P 500, 159 report earnings this week, making it the busiest week of the quarter, Goldman Sachs said in a note.

Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities, said investors were encouraged after the weekend passed without a significant worsening of tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

"This a market that wants to grind higher in the absence of any external shock," Hogan said. "With the focus on fundamentals, I think this market has room to go higher."

Operating earnings at Halliburton rose to 73 cents per share, two cents better than expectations. The company reported strong revenue increases in most regions, including North America and Middle East/Africa, making up for declines in Latin America.

Halliburton shares rose 3.3%. Other oil services stocks also benefited, including Baker Hughes (+2.8%) and Schlumberger (+1.9%).

Ford Motor slipped 0.1% following reports that Alan Mulally will likely step down as chief executive in 2014 and be replaced by chief operating officer Mark Fields.

A report that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is considering a $100bn takeover of British rival AstraZeneca lifted Pfizer 2.0%. US shares of AstraZeneca jumped 8.8%.

Kimberly-Clark, which makes Kleenex and Huggies among other personal-care products, dipped 1.4% despite earnings that bested expectations by a penny at $1.48 a share. But sales slipped 1% from a year ago to $5.28bn, below the analyst projection of $5.32bn.

Toymaker Hasbro reported earnings per share of 14c compared with expectations of 10c. Revenues came in at $679.5m, below the $690.2m projected by analysts. Shares rose 1.9%.

Bond prices were mixed. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury held steady at 2.72%, the same level as Thursday. The 30-year edged higher to 3.53% from 3.52%. Bond prices and yields move inversely.