LONDON (ShareCast) - US stocks advanced on Monday, boosted by new monetary easing measures from China's central bank and upbeat earnings reports.
Just before 15:00, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 187 points, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq gained 14 and 24 points respectively.

The People's Bank of China, under pressure to boost growth following a recent batch of weak economic data, this weekend lowered its reserve requirement ratio by one percentage point, the most aggressive cut since 2008.

However, the bigger-than-expected move, intended to boost bank lending, failed to spark a rally on Asian indices with stocks across the continent firmly in the red on Monday.

"This is only likely to provide temporary relief for US stocks which are facing a tough few weeks," said Oanda's senior market analyst Craig Erlam.

"Earnings season may have got off to a good start but it has included a lot of financial institutions which were expected to announce decent results."

Over 32% of the S&P 500 companies will publish results during the week, with IBM set to report after the closing bell, while Microsoft, Apple and Google will publish results this week.

"Despite being the single biggest drag on US corporate earnings growth, the energy sector was the best performing last week, as crude oil broke above its 2015 trading range," said Jasper Lawler, market analyst at CMC Markets.

"Energy sector earnings expectations are now very low, so stocks in the sector could benefit by beating those lowered expectations."

In company news, Morgan Stanley climbed 1.7% after its first quarter results beat analysts' estimates, while toy-maker Hasbro jumped 8.2% after profit and sales beat expectations.

Discount voucher company Groupon advanced 3.7% after revealing it had agreed to sell a controlling 46% stake in South Korean e-commerce site Ticket Monster to KKR & Co. and Anchor Equity Partners for $360m.

Oilfield services giant Halliburton climbed 1.3% after reporting better-than-expected earnings per share, even though it posted a first-quarter net loss of $643m, or 76 cents a share, as volatility in oil prices continued.

Industrial real estate developer Prologis slid 0.3% after securing a deal to buy industrial-property owner KTR Capital Partners for $5.9bn, in one of the biggest real estate deals this year.

Defence technology group Raytheon Company fell 0.7% after announcing it plans to invest $1.7bn in a cyber unit, while The Wall Street Journal reported the group has completed the acquisition of Websense Inc. from private-equity firm Vista Partners.

The dollar began the week in strong fashion, rising 0.76% against the euro and gaining 0.51% and 0.23% against the pound and the yen respectively, while gold futures slid 0.43% to $1,197.90.

Oil prices fell, with West Texas Intermediate losing 0.56% to $55.43 a barrel, while Brent crude lost 0.84% to $62.92 a barrel.

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