Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Gain; Canadian Pacific To Buy Kansas City Southern For $25B

Following the market opening Monday, the Dow traded up 0.10% to 32,659.95 while the NASDAQ rose 0.79% to 13,319.00. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.39% to 3,928.36.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 29,819,100 cases with around 542,350 deaths. Brazil reported over 11,998,230 COVID-19 cases with 294,040 deaths, while India confirmed a total of at least 11,646,080 cases and 159,960 deaths. In total, there were at least 123,287,410 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 2,716,690 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares rose 1.2% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included ClearSign Technologies Corporation CLIR, up 10%, and Himax Technologies, Inc. HIMX, up 8%.

In trading on Monday, financial shares fell 0.9%.

Top Headline

Canadian Pacific Railway Limited CP announced plans to buy Kansas City Southern KSU in a $25 billion cash-and-stock deal.

The deal has a total enterprise value of almost $29 billion when including the assumption of $3.8 billion of outstanding KCS debt.

Equities Trading UP

Support.com, Inc. SPRT shares shot up 329% to $9.18 after the company announced a merger agreement with Bitcoin Miner Greenidge Generation Holdings.

Shares of StoneMor Inc. STON got a boost, shooting 57% to $4.27.

Summer Infant, Inc. SUMR shares were also up, gaining 34% to $17.43. Summer Infant, last week, reported a Q4 loss of $1.59 per share.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Odonate Therapeutics, Inc. ODT shares tumbled 75% to $4.7499 after the company said it would discontinue development of its Tesetaxel.

Shares of RLX Technology Inc. RLX were down 39% to $11.80 as Reuters reported that China is mulling bring e-cigarette regulation in line with traditional tobacco products.

Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. TKC was down, falling 14% to $4.71 amid weakness in the Turkish stock market following President Erdogan's firing of the head of the country's central bank.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.1% to $61.36, while gold traded down 0.2% to $1,738.20.

Silver traded down 1.9% Monday to $25.815 while copper rose 0.4% to $4.1285.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.1%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.5% and the German DAX 30 gained 0.3%. Meanwhile, the French CAC 40 fell 0.2%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.3%.

The Eurozone’s current account posted a surplus of EUR 5.8 billion in January versus a EUR 8.2 billion deficit in the year-ago month. Italy recorded a current account surplus of EUR 710 million in January versus a EUR 988 million deficit in the year-ago month.

Economics

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index declined to -1.09 in February from a revised reading of 0.75 in January.

US existing home sales fell 6.6% from the prior month to 6.22 million units in February.

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Thomas Barkin will speak at 10:30 a.m. ET.

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

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Mary Daly is set to speak at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles will speak at 1:30 p.m. ET.

Federal Reserve governor Michelle Bowman is set to speak at 7:15 p.m. ET.