Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Rise; Horizon Pharma To Buy Raptor Pharmaceutical For $9/Share

Following the market opening Monday, the Dow traded up 0.30 percent to 18,139.89 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.51 percent to 5,152.26. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.39 percent to 2,136.09.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Monday morning, non-cyclical consumer goods & services shares surged by 0.87 percent.

In trading on Monday, financial shares fell by 0.48 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Ebix Inc EBIX, down 6 percent, and Enterprise Bancorp, Inc EBTC, down 5 percent.

Top Headline

Horizon Pharma plc HZNP and Raptor Pharmaceutical Corp. RPTP reached an agreement by which the former would buy the latter for $9.00 a share in cash.

The transaction, valued at about $800 million, would close in the December quarter of the current year and accretive to adjusted EBITDA in 2017.

Equities Trading UP

American Farmland Co AFCO shares shot up 22 percent to $7.34 after Farmland Partners Inc FPI agreed to merge with American Farmland Company.

Shares of Raptor Pharmaceutical Corp. RPTP got a boost, shooting up 20 percent to $8.97 after Horizon Pharma plc HZNP agreed to acquire Raptor Pharmaceutical for $9 per share in cash.

Cytosorbents Corp CTSO shares were also up, gaining 10 percent to $5.77. Terumo Cardiovascular Group and CytoSorbents entered into a multi-country strategic partnership.

Equities Trading DOWN

Geron Corporation GERN shares dropped 20 percent to $2.30 after the company issued an update on imetelstat trials being conducted by Janssen Research & Development, LLC.

Shares of RetailMeNot Inc SALE were down 10 percent to $10.38. Morgan Stanley downgraded RetailMeNot from Equal-weight to Underweight.

ARC Group WorldWide Inc ARCW was down, falling around 11 percent to $2.76. On Friday, ARC Group reported a Q4 loss of $0.04 per share on revenue of $27.82 million.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.57 percent to $45.62 while gold traded down 0.52 percent to $1,327.50.

Silver traded down 1.82 percent Monday to $19.02, while copper rose 0.05 percent to $2.09.

Eurozone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.38 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index dropped 2.15 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 2.29 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX declined 1.75 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 1.77 percent while U.K. shares fell 1.25 percent.

Economics

The Treasury is set to auction 3-and 6-month bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari will speak in Saint Paul, Minnesota at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard is set speak in Chicago at 1:00 p.m. ET.

The Treasury will auction 3-and 10-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.