Business Highlights

Merger news, analyst upgrades drive stocks higher

NEW YORK (AP) — Another wave of corporate dealmaking stoked investors' confidence in the economy and carried stocks sharply higher Monday.

Analyst upgrades of Alcoa Inc. and Intel Corp. and positive momentum on President Obama's health care overhaul also helped drive a broad advance on the stock market. Major indexes closed off their highs of the day but still rose about 1 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 85.25, or 0.8 percent, to 10,414.14, after rising as much as 130 points earlier in the day.

Bond prices tumbled as stocks rose, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note up to its highest level since August. The dollar strengthened, hurting commodities prices.

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Sanofi-Aventis to buy Gold Bond maker Chattem

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis SA said Monday it plans to buy U.S. health-care company Chattem Inc., maker of over-the-counter mainstays like Gold Bond skin products, for $1.9 billion in cash.

The deal also gives Sanofi-Aventis a distribution base for its popular allergy drug Allegra, which is awaiting approval to switch from prescription-only to an over-the-counter version, and for future switches of other drugs approaching the end of their patents.