By Abhiram Nandakumar
(Reuters) - Wall Street held onto gains on Monday as a recovery in oil boosted energy shares and Hasbro and Disney lifted the consumer discretionary sector.
Crude prices steadied, with Brent inching into positive territory, after recovering from a near 7 percent fall spurred by the collapsed talks in Doha among major producers to tackle a stubborn global surplus.
"I think it was widely anticipated that a deal was unlikely over the weekend and the market has digested that news this morning," said Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis.
Sandven said earnings, oil and the U.S. Federal Reserve remain near-term swing factors for stocks.
A recent rebound in oil and signs that the U.S. economy was recovering had helped stocks rally from a steep selloff earlier this year that had pushed the S&P 500 down as much as 10.5 percent.
The index is now up 2.3 percent in 2016 and about 45 points shy of its all-time high, while the Dow breached 18,000 for the first time since July 21.
At 12:39 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 101.77 points, or 0.57 percent, at 17,999.23, the S&P 500 was up 11.59 points, or 0.56 percent, at 2,092.32 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 15.21 points, or 0.31 percent, at 4,953.42.
Nine of the 10 major S&P sectors were higher, led by a 1.5 percent rise in energy. The consumer discretionary sector was up 0.60 percent, led by Hasbro.
The toymaker jumped 5.2 percent to $86.70 after reporting better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue.
Disney rose 2.7 percent to $101.23 after "Jungle Book" dominated the weekend box office, grossing more than $100 million. The stock gave the biggest boost to the Dow.
While macroeconomic and geopolitical factors continue to weigh on markets, focus now turns to U.S. earnings reports as investors look for the impact of the global turmoil on financial markets and the slump in commodities on balance sheets.
Expectations for the first quarter are bleak, with earnings at S&P 500 companies seen falling 7.7 percent on average and revenue expected to fall 1.3 percent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
IBM and Netflix are slated to post results after the close. Netflix was down 3.2 percent.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 2,082 to 841. On the Nasdaq, 1,838 issues rose and 893 fell.
The S&P 500 index showed 14 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 45 new highs and 15 lows.
(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Don Sebastian)
