Wall St. rebounds after recent losses; financials help

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U.S. stocks rose on Monday, rebounding from losses last week, with gains in Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N) boosting the financial sector.

Gains in consumer discretionary and staples shares also lifted stocks, which on Friday posted their largest weekly drop in more than two months.

"What we're seeing now is the market bouncing back after selling off on disappointment on the central bank front late last week," said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of Sarhan Capital in New York.

"You also have some healthy sector rotation occurring," he said, mostly out of commodity-related stocks.

Recovering oil prices and an accommodative Federal Reserve have helped the S&P 500 rise 15 percent since February - about 3 percent short of its all-time high. However on Thursday, the Bank of Japan's call to not increase monetary stimulus rattled investors.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), was up 0.6 percent, while the financial sector .SPSY climbed 1 percent.

Amazon shares (AMZN.O) jumped 3.6 percent, giving the S&P 500 and Nasdaq their biggest boosts.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was up 99.61 points, or 0.56 percent, to 17,873.25, the S&P 500 .SPX had gained 12.95 points, or 0.63 percent, to 2,078.25 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC had added 30.85 points, or 0.65 percent, to 4,806.21.

Investors have been keeping a sharp eye on U.S.

""You also have some healthy sector rotation occurring," he said, mostly out of commodity-related stocks.Recovering oil prices and an accommodative Federal Reserve have helped the S&P 500 rise 15 percent since February - about 3 percent short of its all-time high"economic data after the Fed held monetary policy steady last week and gave no signals that it was in a hurry to tighten further.

Data on Monday showed that U.S. manufacturing activity rose for the second straight month in April, but at a slightly slower pace. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said its index of national factory activity slipped to 50.8 last month from 51.8 in March.

A report from the Commerce Department showed construction spending rose to an 8-1/2-year high in March.

Baker Hughes (BHI.N) shares fell 2.8 percent to $47.01 after the company and larger rival Halliburton (HAL.N) scrapped a deal to merge. Halliburton rose 1.9 percent to $42.10.

Apollo Education (APOL.O) shares jumped 10.9 percent to $8.65 after a group of investors raised their offer to $1.14 billion to buy the for-profit education provider.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 1,818 to 1,170, for a 1.55-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,588 issues rose and 1,200 fell for a 1.32-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 15 new 52-week highs and 3 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 54 new highs and 29 new lows.

(Additional reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan and Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Chizu Nomiyama)

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