US open: Stocks go green on corporate deal news

(Sharecast News) - Wall Street stocks opened higher on Monday amid a raft of corporate deals.
As of 1530 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.43% at 28,062.36, while the S&P 500 was 1.81% stronger at 3,401.54 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 2.44% firmer at 11,118.14.

The Dow Jones opened 396.72 points higher, extending gains recorded by the index in the final session of last week's volatile trading.

Sentiment got a slight boost from news that chipmaker Nvidia had agreed to buy competitor Arm Holdings from Japan's Softbank for $40.0bn - which it will finance through a combination of cash and common stock.

Also in deal news, TikTok parent ByteDance rejected Microsoft's bid to buy it US operations, opting instead to make Oracle its US partner, providing it with a significant stake in the business, while Gilead agreed to acquire Immunomedics as part of an effort to expand its cancer treatments.

As far as the coronavirus pandemic was concerned, the number of cases in 11 US states were growing by 5% or more, according to John Hopkins University, while news that AstraZeneca's vaccine trial had resumed provided stocks with a lift.

In terms of ongoing stimulus negotiations on Capitol Hill, senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said late last week that the chances of both sides reaching an agreement didn't "look that good right now".

In macro news, the only data point for the day will be consumer inflation expectations for August at 1600 BST.

On the earnings front, Miami-based homebuilder Lennar will report earnings after the close of trading.