Bulls still in charge on Wall St

Trader Timothy Nick works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. File photo / AP

Wall Street moved higher overnight amid further evidence that US corporate earnings are in better shape than feared.

Shares of Berkshire Hathaway rose, last up 2 per cent, after the company reported better-than-expected earnings after the market closed on Friday. Shares of Comcast also gained, last up 0.8 per cent, after it posted earnings that surpassed expectations.

Despite a weakening in the pace of US economic growth, corporate earnings have not been as dire as some had anticipated. Of the S&P 500 members that have already released results this season, 73 per cent exceeded profit forecasts and 49 per cent surpassed sales estimates, according to Bloomberg.

"We still have a pretty heavy slate of earnings this entire week, with a number of high-profile companies reporting, that'll probably be the focus for the next several days," Michael James, a Los Angeles-based managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities, told Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, investors are also eyeing US jobs data scheduled for release later this week. The focus is on Friday's nonfarm payrolls report which is expected to show US companies added 225,000 jobs in April, pushing the unemployment rate to 5.4 per cent.

On Monday, a report showed that US factory orders rose 2.1 per cent in March, the largest increase since July last year, and following a 0.1 per cent decline in February.

In late afternoon trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.39 per cent, he Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 0.38 per cent, while the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 0.39 per cent.

Gains in shares of JPMorgan Chase and those of Merck last up 1.7 per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively, led the Dow higher.

Shares of Cisco advanced, last up 0.5 per cent, after the company said Chief Executive John Chambers will step down in July after 20 years in the role, and that Chuck Robbins will succeed him. Chambers will become Cisco's executive chairman.

"In many cases where the CEO has been very acquisitive, the next guy pares down and refocuses the company, and that is what I would be expecting with this change," Kim Forrest, an analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh, told Reuters.

In another era ending cautionary note, Bill Gross said that the so-called great Bull Run, which started in 1981, for stocks and bonds might be coming to an end.

"Credit based oxygen is running out," Gross said in an outlook titled "A sense of an ending" on the Janus Capital Group website. "As it is, in 2015, I merely have a sense of an ending, a secular bull market ending with a whimper, not a bang."

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index finished the day with a 0.6 per cent gain from the previous close. France's CAC 40 Index advanced 0.7 per cent, while Germany's DAX climbed 1.4 per cent. UK markets were closed on Monday for a public holiday.