Stocks rose on Monday as a flurry of new mergers and acquisitions from major companies flooded business news channels. Over the weekend, AstraZeneca (AZN ) announced that the clinical trials for its coronavirus vaccine candidate will resume following the temporary pause to investigate a possible adverse side effect, boosting Wall Street even more.
Major mergers and acquisitions included Oracle (ORCL ) confirming that it was included in a proposal for ByteDance's U.S. TikTok operations, pushing out prior frontrunner Microsoft (MSFT ) for the fast growing social media platform. Nvidia (NVDA ) announced a massive purchasing of SoftBank's (SFTBY ) chip unit Arm valued at $40 billion. Gilead Sciences (GILD ) also agreed to purchase Immuniomedics (IMMU ) for $21 billion.
Here's how the market settled to start the week:
S&P 500 Index (SPY ): +1.27% or +42.58 points to 3,383.55
Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA ): +1.18% or +327.69 points to 27,993.33
Nasdaq Composite Index (QQQ ): +1.87% or +203.11 points to 11,056.65
For Major Stock News, Apple (AAPL ) and Tesla (TSLA ) shares rose alongside semiconductors--AMD (AMD ), Micron (MU ), Skyworks Solutions (SWKS ), iShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF (SOXX )--following Nvidia's Arm purchase. Delta Air Lines (DAL ) announced a deal to raise $6.5 billion of deft backed by its frequent flyer program to stay afloat amid historically low travel demand. Nikola shares gained as the electric truck maker continues to dispute fraud claims from Hindenburg Research.
For Sector Performance, every industry advanced alongside the broader market. The positive performance gains were as follows: Real Estate +2.16%, Information Technology +2.07%, Materials +1.37%, Health Care +1.35%, Utilities +1.31%, Industrials +1.30%, Financials +1.30%, Consumer Discretionary +0.70%, Energy +0.61%, Consumer Staples +0.47% and Communication Services +0.13%.
For Commodities and Currency, the U.S. Dollar (UUP ) fell against its competing peers as a tidal wave of mergers and acquisition deals lifted sentiment in global equity markets. The dollar's index was down 0.3% against several global currencies on Monday. Gold (GLD ) was boosted by the weakening dollar. Expectations for the Federal Reserve to maintain its current monetary policy later this week also led to gains for the yellow metal. Gold's spot price increased 0.9% to price at $1,959.64 per ounce, while futures settled 1.1% higher to $1,969 per ounce. Crude oil futures slightly declined on Monday as investors feared that global economic recovery has become stagnant and another hurricane is set to disrupt U.S. oil output again. International benchmark Brent Crude (BNO ) slipped 0.9% to settle at $39.48 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate closed 0.19% lower at $37.26 per barrel.
For Tuesday, investors will focus on Apple's unveiling of new products as well as the start of the Federal Reserve's two day monetary policy meeting.