U.S. stocks rise driven by earnings

U.S. stocks traded mostly higher on Monday, the first trading day of the month, as investors mainly digested the newly-released data and waited for another big week of earnings.

At midday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 18.28 points, or 0.09 percent, to 20,958.79. The S&P 500 rose 5.85 points, or 0.25 percent, to 2,390.05. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 31.07 points, or 0.51 percent, to 6,078.68.

Apple, Facebook and American International Group are among companies set to report quarterly earnings later this week.

This earnings season has been strong so far. The latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the first quarter of 2017 are expected to rise 13.6 percent year on year, while the revenues are forecast to increase 7.1 percent.

On the economic front, U.S. personal income increased 0.2 percent in March, slightly less than market expectations, according to the Commerce Department Monday.

In March, personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased 5.7 billion dollars, or less than 0.1 percent.

The manufacturing index, also known as the purchasing managers index (PMI), registered 54.8 in April, below market estimates and a decrease of 2.4 percentage point from the previous month reading of 57.2, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said in a report on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve's policymakers are slated to meet this week, but investors widely expected them to hold interest rate steady.

U.S. stocks posted solid gains for the last week of April, as investors mainly cheered over strong corporate earnings and economic reports. Endite