Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Surges Over 200 Points; Geron Shares Tumble

Toward the end of trading Monday, the Dow traded up 1.12 percent to 18,288.81 while the NASDAQ climbed 1.47 percent to 5,201.01. The S&P also rose, gaining 1.31 percent to 2,155.76.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Monday afternoon, healthcare shares surged by 1.2 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Raptor Pharmaceutical Corp., and Horizon Pharma PLC.

In trading on Monday, financial shares fell by 0.02 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Gladstone Capital Corporation GLAD, down 5 percent, and Parke Bancorp, Inc. PKBK, 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 19 percent to $7.20 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 $8.96 after Horizon Pharma plc HZNP agreed to acquire Raptor Pharmaceutical for $9 per share in cash.

Syntel, Inc. SYNT shares were also up, gaining 11 percent to $45.24. Syntel announced a special dividend of $15 per share.

Equities Trading DOWN

Geron Corporation GERN shares dropped 19 percent to $2.32 after the company issued an update on imetelstat trials being conducted by Janssen Research & Development, LLC.

Shares of RetailMeNot Inc SALE were down 9 percent to $10.47. Morgan Stanley downgraded RetailMeNot from Equal-weight to Underweight.

SigmaTron International SGMA was down, falling around 10 percent to $5.94 following Q1 results. SigmaTron reported Q1 earnings of $0.03 per share on revenue of $58.9 million.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.63 percent to $46.17 while gold traded down 0.52 percent to $1,327.50.

Silver traded down 1.87 percent Monday to $19.01, while copper rose 0.41 percent to $2.10.

Eurozone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.95 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index dropped 1.76 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 1.84 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX declined 1.34 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 1.15 percent while U.K. shares fell 1.12 percent.

Economics

There were no major US economic releases Monday.