Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 0.2 percent to 1,280.70. Last week, the gauge gained 1.6 percent, the second-best start of a year since 2006 www.cheapburberryoutlet2012.com. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 32.77 points, or 0.3 percent, to 12,392.69. The Nasdaq composite index closed up 2.34 points, or 0.1 percent, at 2,676.56.

“We’ll see some earnings growth this year, but not a lot,” said Kevin Caron, a market strategist at Stifel Nicolaus in Florham Park, N.J. “As long as U.S. fundamentals continue to move in a positive direction and as long as investors are comforted by the actions taken to maintain liquidity in Europe, the markets will be more complacent.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France sought on Monday to devise a plan for rescuing the euro over the next three months. Euro zone leaders may complete their new budget rule book by Jan. 30, one month ahead of schedule, and they are considering accelerating capital contributions to the bailout fund being set up this year to stem the debt crisis.

American corporations ended 2011 with the slowest profit growth in two years as the mending economy was met by a European slump that vexed companies reliant on global sales. S.& P. 500 companies, which beat analysts’ estimates in the previous 11 quarters, are forecast to report a 6 percent increase in per-share profit during the September-December period, according to projections compiled by Bloomberg burberry cheap handbags.

American companies “are the cleanest dirty shirt, but we have to ask the question to what extent are they being hit on revenue and to what extent can they continue to contain costs,” Mohamed El-Erian, the chief executive of Pacific Investment Management Company, the world’s largest manager of bond funds, said during an interview on Bloomberg Television.

The Treasury’s 10-year note rose 1/32, to 100 13/32. The yield remained unchanged from Friday at 1.96 percent.

Alcoa, the first Dow company to announce results for the fourth quarter, rose 0.4 percent in after-hours trading after gaining 2.9 percent, to $9.43, in regular trading. After the market closed, Alcoa reported its first quarterly loss in more than two years, in part because of lower aluminum prices. The loss of 3 cents a share, excluding restructuring costs, matched the average projection from 18 estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Other industrial companies also gained. Caterpillar added 1.4 percent to $97.10. Schlumberger advanced 1.5 percent to $68.82. Bank of America increased 1.5 percent to $6.27.

Semiconductor shares rallied after Deutsche Bank raised the industry to overweight from equal weight. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 2 percent.

Netflix, the streaming movie and DVD-by-mail service, increased 13.8 percent to $98.18, for the biggest advance in the S.& P. 500. The company forecast that it would attract millions of subscribers within a few years to the Internet film and television service it started in Britain and Ireland on Monday. Burberry menswear - shirts, t-shirts, underwear, sweater, jackets, jeans.

Inhibitex, a biopharmaceutical firm, soared 140 percent, to $23.70, after Bristol-Myers Squibb agreed to buy it to increase its position in hepatitis C medicines.