- Mulling Buffett's Stock Advice? Get in With REITs: Fund Managers
- So Now You Can’t Give Microsoft Away?
- Groupon Needs More Disclosure: Analyst
- China’s Steelmakers Set for Turnaround: Analyst
- Bulls Bet Silicon Motion Will Bounce
- Tobacco Stocks a Hot Dividend Play: Analyst
- Forget the Earnings, Disney’s Issue Is the Multiple: Analyst
- Drug Stocks Do Well in ‘Gloom and Doom’ Market: Analyst
- The Secret Lives of Traders—Seeking the Next Hot Thing
- Markets Finally Get Greek Deal —So Where's the Rally?
- Warren Buffett: Stocks Will Outperform Gold and Bonds
- Alibaba Plans to Buy Back Yahoo Stake, Go Private
- Greece Deal Fails to Convince, EU Demands More
- 'Mortgage Deal from Hell' Hurts Sound Borrowers: Bove
- Clint Eastwood: Super Bowl Ad Endorses No One
- Zynga, Hasbro Partner to Make Toys, Games
- Home Builder Optimism Up, Industry Expert Says
MOST SHARED
- New York Fashion Week Hits the Runway as Colors Pop
- Cramer: Berkshire Hathaway Is a 'Screaming Buy'
- Australia Central Bank Repeats Policy Right for Now
- Greece Deal Fails to Convince, EU Demands More
- Steelers' Antonio Brown Spends Super Bowl Week with Twitter Fan Turned BFF
- Warren Buffett: Stocks Will Outperform Gold and Bonds .. and They're Safer 'By Far'
- Love @ First Byte: The Secret Science of Online Dating Preview
- LinkedIn Earnings Bode Well for Hiring and Social Media
- Lightning Round: Yahoo!, CEC Entertainment, Standard Pacific and More
- Alibaba Group Plans to Take Hong Kong Unit Private: Report
MOST POPULAR
HOT ON FACEBOOK
Stocks Rise After Alcoa, Intel Upgrades
Text Size 
Stocks advanced Monday following upgrades on Alcoa and Intel and a big health-care deal. Plus, the dollar declined.
In early trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up more than 1 percent, as were the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. The Nasdaq reached a new intraday high for the year around 2,240.
The dollar slipped against both the euro and yen, while February crude topped above $75 a barrel. The January contract expires later Monday. Gold held steady after recent multi-week lows.
"We've got a mildly positive commodities complex and mildly weaker dollar, which seem to be the drivers early here," Art Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies, told Reuters.
Heading into the final two trading weeks of the year, it's unclear whether major indexes will log gains for December but gains for 2009 are all but locked in.
Intel [INTC
Loading...
()
] was the biggest gainer on the Dow after Barclays upgraded the stock to "overweight."
Alcoa [AA
Loading...
()
] was upgraded by Morgan Stanley to "overweight." Separately, Alcoa announced a partnership Sunday with Saudi Arabian Mining to develop a low-cost aluminum.
In a big M&A deal, Paris-based Sanofi Aventis [SNY
Loading...
()
] said it will acquire Chattem [CHTT
Loading...
()
] in 2010 for $1.9 billion in cash, an acquisition expected to create the world's fifth-largest healthcare company. Chattem shares shot up, reflecting the premium offered in the $93.50-a-share deal.
And Pfizer [OFE
Loading...
()
] said it's buying the rights to a stem-cell therapy to treat inflammatory bowel disease from Atherys.
Another deal over the weekend saw Bucyrus International [BUCY
Loading...
()
] agree to buy the mining unit of Terex [TEX
Loading...
()
] for $1.3 billion. The deal will allow Terex to ask for $300 million worth of Bucyrus shares.
Positive earnings news also helped boost investor spirits, with drugstore chain Walgreen [WAG
Loading...
()
] reporting a quarterly profit gain of 20 percent that beat Wall Street estimates.
Food maker ConAgra [CAG
Loading...
()
] also beat analyst estimates as it said sales of of its products were helped by more people eating at home.
After the bell, Jabil Circuit [JBL
Loading...
()
] is set to report its quarterly earnings.
Health care stocks will be worth watching, after the health care reform bill cleared a major procedural hurdle in the Senate overnight.
Though Republicans have vowed to delay the bill, it's likely to be passed by the end of the week, and it would then go onto a House/Senate conference for reconciliation.
Investors will be especially attuned to retail results for the final few days before Christmas, especially with the weekend blizzard in the Northeast cutting into what would have been busy holiday shopping traffic.
There could be some renewed interest in stocks like FedEx [FDX
Loading...
()
] and UPS [UPS
Loading...
()
] , with many shoppers having turned to online ordering after they couldn't make it out their front doors over the weekend.
Cell Therapeutics [CTIC
Loading...
()
] said European health regulators granted orphan status to its experimental drug pixantrone, which treats a type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system.
 |
Fertilizer maker Potash [POT
Loading...
()
] saw its shares gain after Goldman Sachs added the company to its conviction buy list. Goldman also raised Potash competitor Mosaic [MOS
Loading...
()
] to "buy" from "neutral," sending its shares higher.
General Motors has gotten some new expressions of interest for its Saab unit, potentially reviving a sale after GM said last week it would wind Saab down.
Though some important economic releases are on the schedule for later in the shortened trading week, none will be released Monday.
And while no Federal Reserve officials have scheduled appearances or speeches Monday, Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans will talk speak to CNBC in an exclusive interview at 10 am New York time.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
