Ticker and trading information for media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. is displayed at the post where it is traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., October 21, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
NEW YORK: US stocks touched their highest levels in two weeks as a flurry of deal activity and strong quarterly earnings boosted investor confidence.
AT&T was down 1.2% at US$37.03 after the telecommunications company said it would buy Time Warner Inc for US$85.4bil. If approved by regulators, this would be the biggest deal in the world this year. Time Warner Inc was down 1.8% at US$87.84.
Investors are also parsing quarterly earnings reports from companies. More than a third of the S&P 500 components are scheduled to report earnings this week, including heavyweights such as Apple and Boeing.
“M&A activity is generally seen as a bullish trend for the market,” said Randy Frederick, managing director of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.
“It’s also been a pretty good quarter for earnings so far and we might finally see the end of earnings recession. If you look at the companies that have reported so far, most of them have outperformed the long-term average in profit and revenue.”
Third-quarter earnings are expected to increase 1.1% after four consecutive quarters of contraction, according to Thomson Reuters data. Of the 120 S&P companies that have reported earnings, 77.5% have beat analyst expectations, above the long-term average of 63.5%.
At 10:56am ET (1456 GMT), the Dow Jones industrial average was up 85.19 points, or 0.47%, at 18,230.9, the S&P 500 was up 10.32 points, or 0.48%, at 2,151.48 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 46.63 points, or 0.89%, at 5,304.04.
Nine of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher, with technology index’s 0.87% rise leading the advancers.
The dollar index was little changed at 98.72 against a basket of major currencies, after touching its highest level since early February, last week. A strong dollar could dent the earnings of large multinationals.
Genworth Financial was down 9.9% at US$4.69 after little-known China Oceanwide Holdings Group pledged US$3.8bil in a deal to take control of the US insurer.
TD Ameritrade fell 2.4% to US$36.20 after it said it would buy privately held Scottrade Financial Services in a deal valued at US$4bil.
B/E Aerospace jumped 15.4% to US$58.43 after aircraft component maker Rockwell Collins said it would buy the company in a deal valued at US$6.4bil plus the assumption of US$1.9bil in debt. Rockwell was down 5.7% at US$79.64.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,893 to 920. On the Nasdaq, 1,808 issues rose and 768 fell.
The S&P 500 index showed 17 new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 92 new highs and 25 new lows. - Reuters
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