U.S. stocks traded higher midway through trading, with the Dow Jones gaining more than 600 points on Monday.
The Dow traded up 2.14% to 31,931.82 while the NASDAQ rose 1.57% to 11,529.80. The S&P also rose, gaining, 1.90% to 3,975.67.
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Leading and Lagging Sectors
Financials shares rose by 2.8% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Forge Global Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:FRGE), up 18% and Ocwen Financial Corporation (NYSE:OCN) up 9%.
In trading on Monday, consumer discretionary shares fell 0.8%.
Top Headline
Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO) is reportedly in discussions to take over cloud computing company VMWare Inc (NYSE:VMW).
The San Jose, California-based semiconductors and infrastructure software solutions company is looking to purchase VMWare, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Equities Trading UP
TreeHouse Foods, Inc. (NYSE:THS) shares shot up 13% to $41.55. Truist Securities upgraded Treehouse Foods from Hold to Buy and raised the price target from $35 to $50.
Shares of VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW) got a boost, shooting 19% to $114.17 following several reports Broadcom is in talks to acquire the company.
O2Micro International Limited (NASDAQ:OIIM) shares were also up, gaining 18% to $3.46. O2Micro announced the receipt of an updated preliminary non-binding proposal to acquire the company.
Equities Trading DOWN
Evoke Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:EVOK) shares tumbled 17% to $2.54 after effect of 1:12 reverse stock split.
Shares of Inotiv, Inc. (NASDAQ:NOTV) were down 13% to $15.92. Inotiv said on May 18, U.S. Department of Justice executed a search and seizure warrant on Cumberland, Virginia facility.
Foghorn Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:FHTX) was down, falling 14% to $11.66. Morgan Stanley maintained Foghorn Therapeutics with an Overweight and lowered the price target from $26 to $25.
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Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded down 0.4% to $109.81, while gold traded up 0.8% to $1,855.90.
Silver traded up 1.1% to $21.905 on Monday while copper rose 1.5% to $4.3390.
Euro zone
European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.80%, London’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.35% and Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 1.16%. The German DAX climbed 0.93%, French CAC 40 gained 0.39% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.42%.
The Ifo Business Climate indicator for Germany increased to a three-month high of 93 in May versus a revised reading of 91.9 in April.
Economics
The Chicago Fed National Activity Index rose to 0.47 points in April versus a three-month low reading of 0.36 points in the previous month.
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COVID-19 Update
The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 85,004,430 cases with around 1,028,920 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,138,390 cases and 524,450 deaths, while Brazil reported over 30,791,220 COVID-19 cases with 665,680 deaths. In total, there were at least 527,804,110 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,300,510 deaths.
