Stocks were higher from the outset of trading, extending their recent winning streak after President Donald Trump said he was not going to be enacting tariffs on Mexican goods imported into the U.S., as he'd threatened. While the trade fight may have cooled with our North American neighbor for now, trade tensions with China remain high and there were no reports over the weekend or today that indicate progress has been made on that front.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., the JOLTS report showed that job openings dropped 25,000 to 7.45M in April.
TOP NEWS: Raytheon (RTN) and United Technologies (UTX) announced a mega-merger to combine in an all-stock deal to create Raytheon Technologies Corporation. The newly formed company will exclude Otis and Carrier, which are expected to be separated from United Technologies in the first half of 2020, as previously announced. Upon completion of the deal, United Technologies shareowners will own approximately 57% and Raytheon shareowners will own approximately 43% of the combined company.
In other M&A news, Salesforce (CRM) announced an agreement to acquire Tableau Software (DATA) in an all-stock transaction having an enterprise value of $15.7B. After that deal was announced, Tableau shares jumped 33.4% while Salesforce shares fell 5.2%.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that the U.S. Department of Defense has a "handshake" agreement that would cut the price of the Lockheed Martin (LMT) F-35A fighter jet by 8.8% and bring the price of each Lockheed aircraft below $80M a year earlier than expected.
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Tilray (TLRY), which rose 11.2% after announcing that it has signed a non-binding letter of intent with its largest stockholder Privateer for a transaction that will extend the lock-up on and provide for the orderly release of the 75M Tilray shares held by Privateer to Privateer's equity holders. Also higher was Tesla (TSLA), which advanced 4.1% after Roth Capital analyst Craig Irwin upgraded the stock to Buy from Neutral following meetings with major Chinese electric vehicle producers and relevant supply chain participants.
Among the notable losers was Insys (INSY), which dropped 51.4% after announcing that the company has filed voluntary cases under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to facilitate the sale of substantially all of the company's assets and address the company's legacy legal liabilities. Also lower was Spark Therapeutics (ONCE), which fell 8.4% after announcing the UK Competition and Markets Authority has opened an investigation in order to obtain further information in relation to Roche's (RHHBY) proposed acquisition of the company.
INDEXES: The Dow rose 78.74, or 0.30%, to 26,062.68, the Nasdaq gained 81.07, or 1.05%, to 7,823.17, and the S&P 500 advanced 13.39, or 0.47%, to 2,886.73.
RTN
+
UTX
+
Salesforce
-8.51 (-5.28%)
Tableau
+42.24 (+33.73%)
Lockheed Martin
-3.84 (-1.08%)
Tilray
+4.19 (+10.78%)
Tesla
+8.38 (+4.10%)
Insys Therapeutics
-0.664 (-51.08%)
Spark Therapeutics
-9.21 (-8.42%)
Roche
+ (+0.00%)