S&P Hits 7-Year High on M&A News

  • May 18, 2007
  • Darren Wong

Stocks closed higher today, on major
M&A news with Microsoft, and overall positive earnings
announcements from Thursday. General Electric merger news also
helped to push the major indexes higher.

Crude gave up gains through the day to
close basically flat. Yesterday, crude shot up over 3% on
speculation that summer demand will exceed U.S. refinery and
supply capacities. Today, those sentiments continued, and oil
continued to rise, but fell back near the end of the day.

Bond prices fell across
the board, as traders bet that the Fed will not be forced to cut
rates. Today, the U. of Michigan sentiment index came in stronger
than expected.

Today’s

PowerRatings Heat Map is starting to show some bearish sectors, which is to
be expected following the rally of the past few weeks. The two
most notable bearish Heat Map sectors are Drugs and Energy.


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Stocks in
Motion

Microsoft
(
MSFT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) To Acquire Aquantive
For About $6 Bln In Cash (full
story). MSFT closed down around 0.7%.

Autodesk
(
ADSK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Q1 Revenues Up 17%;
Shares Dip (full
story). ADSK closed up about 2%.


Kohl’s
(
KSS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Stock Rises On Q1 Results (full
story). KSS closed up near 1%.


General Electric Co.
(
GE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Is Indicating To Open Higher (full story). GE
closed up 1%.

For more stories as they happen, go to our
Breaking News section.

Market Snapshot

Dow

 +79.81 13,556.53

NASDAQ

 +19.07 2,558.45

S&P 500

 +10.00
1,522.75

NYSE NASDAQ

Volume

 2,906,071,000 1,963,514,000

Advances

 2,006 1,843

Declines

 1,236 1,167

Up Volume

 1897 1160

Down Volume

 720 649

New Highs

 263 135

New Lows

 33 91



Strongest/Weakest Sectors

Strongest Sectors

Weakest Sectors
Amex Oil Index (XOI) Nasdaq Transportation (TRANX)
Nasdaq Financial 100 (IXF) Morgan Stanley Healthcare (HMO)
Deutsche Bank Energy Index (DXE) Dow Jones Equity REIT Index (DJR)


Economic
News

U. of
Michigan consumer sentiment rose to 88.7, versus expectations of 86.2

Darren Wong

Associate Editor

darrenw@tradingmarkets.com