Mid-Afternoon Market Update: CIFC Rises Following Acquisition News; Marathon Oil Shares Slide

Toward the end of trading Monday, the Dow traded down 0.15 percent to 18,524.97 while the NASDAQ fell 0.01 percent to 5,237.92. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.13 percent to 2,181.14.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Monday afternoon, the healthcare shares gained by 0.35 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Medivation Inc , and Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc VRX.

In trading on Monday, energy shares tumbled by 1.20 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Marathon Oil Corporation MRO, down 8 percent, and Approach Resources Inc. AREX, down 6 percent.

Top Headline

Pfizer Inc PFE and Medivation Inc. MDVN struck a definitive deal through which the former would buy the latter for $81.50 a share in cash. The total enterprise value of the transaction is about $14 billion.

Pfizer expects the deal to be accretive to its adjusted EPS by about $0.05 in the first full year after the closure of the transaction. The company expects additional accretion and growth thereafter. The company doesn't expect the transaction to modify its existing financial outlook for the current year.

Equities Trading UP

CIFC LLC CIFC shares shot up 59 percent to $10.97 after the company agreed to be acquired by F.A.B. Partners for $333 million in cash.

Shares of Medivation Inc MDVN got a boost, shooting up 20 percent to $80.40 as Pfizer Inc PFE announced plans to buy Medivation for $81.50 a share in cash.

Intersil Corp ISIL shares were also up, gaining 20 percent to $18.75 following a report it was near a deal to be acquired by Renesas Electronics for up to $2.99 billion.

Equities Trading DOWN

Real Industry Inc RELY shares dropped 10 percent to $7.31 as the company announced the resignation of Mr. Craig T. Bouchard as CEO. The company named Mr. Kyle Ross as interim CEO.

Shares of Marathon Oil Corporation MRO were down 8 percent to $15.53 after the company reported leadership changes. The company reported the departure of executive vice president and CFO J.R. Sult for personal reasons.

VisionChina Media Inc (ADR) VISN was down, falling around 15 percent to $6.90 as the company issued an update on sale of subway mobile TV advertising unit. VisionChina has entered into a new equity transfer deal with Ledman Optoelectronic to sell 49 percent equity interests in company's New Culture Media unit for RMB382.2 million.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 3.46 percent to $47.41 while gold traded down 0.27 percent to $1,342.60.

Silver traded down 2.33 percent Monday to $19.00, while copper fell 1.22 percent to $2.15.

Eurozone

European shares closed mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.09 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index gained 0.21 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.36 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX declined 0.47 percent, and the French CAC 40 fell 0.24 percent, while U.K. shares fell 0.44 percent.

Economics

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index rose to 0.27 in July, versus a prior reading of 0.16. However, economists were expecting a reading of 0.20.