US stocks up after first weekly drop in a month
17 Jun 2014
US stocks were up after the first weekly drop in equities in a month, as corporate deals and US manufacturing growth gained ground over tension in Iraq, Bloomberg reported.
Covidien Plc was up 20 per cent following Medtronic Inc agreeing to the acquisition of the Irish company for $42.9 billion. Williams Cos rose 19 per cent after agreeing to acquire control of Access Midstream Partners LP for $6 billion.
General Electric Co slipped 0.8 per cent as a group led by Siemens AG put in a joint bid to acquire the energy unit of France's Alstom SA. Yahoo! Inc retreated 5.8 per cent, ending an eight-day rally, following Alibaba Group Holding Ltd reporting a slowdown in quarterly revenue growth.
The Standard & Poor's 500 was up 0.1 per cent to 1,937.78 at 4 pm in New York after fluctuating between gains and losses throughout the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 5.27 points, or less than 0.1 per cent, to 16,781.01 while the Russell 2000 Index of small companies added 0.4 per cent. About 5.4 billion shares were traded today on US exchanges, 13 per cent below the three-month average.
Bloomberg quoted Stephen Carl, principal and head equity trader at New York-based Williams Capital Group LP as saying in a phone interview that the market was looking for a direction,'', said in a phone interview.
He added the data was not really robust. He added, while some of it pointed to a more positive direction, but underlying, there was still more to be proven. He said people were keeping an eye on Iraq and the broader geopolitical situation.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund cut its US growth forecast on Monday and said the economy would not reach full employment until the end of 2017, letting interest rates to be held near zero for longer than what was expected by financial markets, Reuters reported.