Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Mixed; Broadcom In Talks To Buy VMWare

U.S. stocks traded mixed this morning, with the Dow Jones gaining around 250 points on Monday.

Following the market opening Monday, the Dow traded up 0.84% to 31,524.56 while the NASDAQ fell 0.26% to 11,324.59. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.33% to 3,914.14.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Financials shares rose by 1.9% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Forge Global Holdings, Inc. FRGE, up 19% and Ocwen Financial Corporation OCN up 8%.

In trading on Monday, real estate shares fell 0.3%.

Top Headline

Broadcom Inc AVGO is reportedly in discussions to take over cloud computing company VMWare Inc VMW.

The San Jose, California-based semiconductors and infrastructure software solutions company is looking to purchase VMWare, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Equities Trading UP

Forge Global Holdings, Inc. FRGE shares shot up 20% to $21.18 after dipping 15% on Friday.

Shares of VMware, Inc. VMW got a boost, shooting 17% to $111.84 following several reports Broadcom is in talks to acquire the company.

O2Micro International Limited OIIM shares were also up, gaining 15% to $3.3659. O2Micro announced the receipt of an updated preliminary non-binding proposal to acquire the company.

Equities Trading DOWN

Evoke Pharma, Inc. EVOK shares tumbled 23% to $2.36 after effect of 1:12 reverse stock split.

Shares of NanoViricides, Inc. NNVC were down 19% to $2.1113 after jumping around 40% on Friday.

PowerSchool Holdings, Inc. PWSC was down, falling 16% to $10.94. The company recently posted downbeat quarterly earnings.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.5% to $110.88, while gold traded up 1% to $1,860.50.

Silver traded up 2.1% to $22.125 on Monday while copper rose 0.4% to $4.2915.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 1%, London’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.3% and Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 1.1%. The German DAX climbed 1.1%, French CAC 40 gained 0.4% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.3%.

The Ifo Business Climate indicator for Germany increased to a three-month high of 93 in May versus a revised reading of 91.9 in April.

Economics

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index rose to 0.47 points in April versus a three-month low reading of 0.36 points in the previous month.

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

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic will speak at 12:00 p.m. ET.

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COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 85,004,430 cases with around 1,028,920 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,138,390 cases and 524,450 deaths, while Brazil reported over 30,791,220 COVID-19 cases with 665,680 deaths. In total, there were at least 527,804,110 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,300,510 deaths.