U.S. stocks traded higher toward the end of trading, with the Dow Jones gaining more than 600 points on Monday.

The Dow traded up 2.06% to 31,904.39 while the NASDAQ rose 1.35% to 11,507.88. The S&P also rose, gaining, 1.88% to 3,974.89.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Financials shares rose by 3.7% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Forge Global Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:FRGE), up 20% and Ocwen Financial Corporation (NYSE:OCN) up 13%.

In trading on Monday, consumer discretionary shares rose by just 0.4%.

Top Headline

Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO) is reportedly in discussions to take over cloud computing company VMWare Inc (NYSE: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

TreeHouse Foods, Inc. (NYSE:THS) shares shot up 13% to $41.50. Truist Securities upgraded Treehouse Foods from Hold to Buy and raised the price target from $35 to $50.

Shares of VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW) got a boost, shooting 21% to $115.66 following several reports Broadcom is in talks to acquire the company.

O2Micro International Limited (NASDAQ:OIIM) shares were also up, gaining 33% to $3.90. O2Micro announced the receipt of an updated preliminary non-binding proposal to acquire the company.

Equities Trading DOWN

Evoke Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:EVOK) shares tumbled 11% to $2.7362 after effect of 1:12 reverse stock split.

Shares of Inotiv, Inc. (NASDAQ:NOTV) were down 31% to $12.69. Inotiv said on May 18, U.S. Department of Justice executed a search and seizure warrant on Cumberland, Virginia facility.

Foghorn Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:FHTX) was down, falling 12% to $12.69. Morgan Stanley maintained Foghorn Therapeutics with an Overweight and lowered the price target from $26 to $25.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.1% to $110.26, while gold traded up 0.7% to $1,854.60.

Silver traded up 0.7% to $21.835 on Monday while copper rose 1.6% to $4.3415.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 1.26%, London’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.67% and Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 1.67%. The German DAX climbed 1.38%, French CAC 40 gained 1.17% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.17%.

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.

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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.