Stocks Advance; IBM Misses on Top Line

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stocks finished with solid gains Monday as investors weighed a batch of corporate earnings against weak housing data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 57 points, or 0.6%, to 10,154. The S&P 500 gained 6 points, or 0.6%, to 1071, while the Nasdaq went ahead by 19 points, or 0.9%, at 2198.

Earnings news continued after the closing bell. IBM(IBM) managed to beat profit expectations by 3 cents in reporting earnings of $2.61 a share in the second quarter. Still, the tech giant missed revenue forecasts.

Delta Air Lines(DAL), Halliburton(HAL) and Hasbro(HAS) kicked off the week with better-than-expected quarterly profits but both the airline operator and the toy maker missed sales estimates, and Halliburton warned that the deepwater drilling suspension would cut into profits for the rest of the year.

"Earnings season really hasn't been that bad," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners, earlier in the day. "The market is just caught in a rut right now simply because of the fact that it's trying to establish just how much the economy has slowed. Investors are trying to get a sense of earnings growth going forward, but it's too early to get a good grasp of that yet."

Earlier, Moody's downgraded Ireland's government bond ratings to Aa2 from Aa1, pointing to its loss of financial strength, dismal growth prospects and challenged banking system.

Overseas on Monday, Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 0.8%. Japanese markets were closed for a holiday. The FTSE in London was lower by 0.3%, and the DAX in Frankfurt was losing 0.05%.

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