Stocks rebound from Friday's slump

NEW YORK - The stock market bounced back from Friday's big loss after getting a boost from some good first-quarter earnings reports.

Toy-maker Hasbro reported an unexpected gain in sales on the back of strong demand for its Transformer, Nerf, and Marvel toys. Oil and gas services company Halliburton and investment bank Morgan Stanley also reported results that were better than analysts were expecting.

Stocks were recovering from a big slump Friday, when worries about the unresolved Greek debt crisis and some disappointing earnings reports rattled financial markets.

This week is one of the busiest for first-quarter earnings, with 147 companies, close to one-third of those in the S&P 500, scheduled to report their results. Investors are already expecting weak earnings because a surge in the dollar is hurting overseas sales. A big drop in oil prices is also hitting energy companies.

The strong earnings Monday "are setting a good trend to start the week," said David Lyon, a global investment specialist at JPMorgan Private Bank. "Earnings are coming in better than the weakened expectations."

The Standard & Poor's 500 index climbed 19.22 points, or 0.92 percent, to 2,100.40. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 208.63 points, or 1.17 percent, to 18,034.93. The Nasdaq composite climbed 62.79 points, or 1.27 percent, to 4,994.60.

Analysts are predicting that earnings per share will slide an average of 2.6 percent for S&P 500 companies in the first quarter, according to S&P Capital IQ data. If that forecast holds, it will mark the first period that earnings have contracted since the third quarter of 2009, when the United States was emerging from the recession.

In government bond trading, prices edged lower. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.88 percent from 1.86 percent Friday.

In currency trading, the euro weakened to $1.0737 from $1.0805 Friday. The dollar rose to 119.24 yen from 118.94 yen.

U.S. crude oil rose 64 cents to close at $56.38 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils used by many U.S. refineries, was unchanged at $63.45 a barrel in London.

In metals trading, silver fell 34 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $15.89 an ounce. Gold dropped $9.40, or 0.8 percent, to $1,193.50 an ounce. Copper also dropped, falling 4.2 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $2.73 a pound.

In other futures trading on the NYMEX, natural gas fell 9.8 cents to close at $2.536 per 1,000 cubic feet.