Stocks kicked off the week in dull fashion, but for the bulls, dull is perfectly fine. The Nasdaq gapped up and rose 0.8% early, helped by strong earnings from Comcast (CMCSA), but gave back early gains. It closed 0.2% higher. The S&P 500 added 0.3%, and the Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks rallied 0.4%. Advancing stocks had a slight edge over decliners on both major exchanges.