Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Markets Look to Close in the Green for the Last Session of 2013 - Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Common Stock (NYSE:BRK/A)

As the last trading day of 2013 came to a close, the Dow traded up 0.11 percent to 16,524.15 while the NASDAQ surged 0.30 percent to 4,166.82. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.10 percent to 1,842.36.

Top Headline
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) announced its plans to buy the flow improver business of Phillips 66 PSX for about $1.4 billion of stock.

Equities Trading UP

Shares of Hertz Global Holdings

HTZ

gained steadily on Tuesday's session, rising 9.38 percent to $28.33 after the company

adopted one-year

shareholder rights plan, signaling to the street that activist inestors had come into play in the name.

Phillips 66 PSX rose 2.76 percent to $76.78 after Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) announced its plans to buy the flow improver business of Phillips 66 for about $1.4 billion of stock.

Marvell Technology Group

MRVL

was also up, gaining 4.58 percent to $14.39 after KKR & Co LLP reported a 6.8% stake in the company.

Equities Trading DOWN
Shares of Exact Sciences EXAS were down on the last session of 2013, falling 5.50 percent to $11.60 despite little news on the name.

Haemonetics

HAE

tumbled 1.13 percent to $42.06 after analysts at Benchmark downgraded the stock from Buy to Hold and lowered the target price from $49 to $46.

Mechel OAO MTL was down, falling 2.33 percent to $2.52 after the company appointed Senior Vice-President for Economics and Management Oleg Korzhov as its Chief Executive Officer.

Commodities

In commodity news,

oil traded down 1.01 percent

to $98.29, while gold traded down 0.25 percent to $1,201.40.

Silver traded down 0.98 percent Tuesday to $19.38, while copper rose 0.35 percent to $3.40.

Eurozone

European shares

were higher

today. The Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.15 percent, the French CAC 40 rose 0.47 percent and U.K. shares gained 0.26 percent.

Economics
The ICSC-Goldman Sachs store sales index rose 1% in the week ended Saturday versus the earlier week.

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index gained 4.5% in the fourth week of December, versus a 3.9% rise in the earlier week.

The S&P/Case-Shiller home price index gained 13.6% in the year ended October. The Chicago PMI fell to 59.10 in December, versus a prior reading of 63.00. However, economists were expecting a reading of 61.00.

The Conference Board's consumer confidence index surged to 78.10 in December, versus a prior reading of 70.40. However, economists were expecting a reading of 76.00.

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