Stock Futures Hesitate on M&A News
NEW YORK (
) -- Stock futures hesitated Monday after the previous session's rally as investors absorbed the flurry of deals news.
Futures for the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
were up by 21 points, or 9 points above fair value, at 10,803. Futures for the
S&P 500
were higher by a point, or half of a point above fair value, at 1144 while
Nasdaq
futures were up by 3 points, or nearly half of a point below fair value.
With no economic reports scheduled for Monday's session, investors were focusing on the latest batch of mergers and acquisitions news.
Southwest Airlines
(LUV) - Get Southwest Airlines Co. Report
agreed to buy
TheStreet Recommends
AirTran Holdings
( AAI) in a cash and stock deal valued at roughly $1.4 billion.
Wal-Mart
(WMT) - Get Walmart Inc. Report
made a non-binding bid to acquire
Massmart Holdings
, South Africa's third-largest store group by value, for more than $4 billion.
Unilever (UL) - Get Unilever Plc Report agreed to acquire beauty products maker Alberto Culver (ACV) - Get AllianzGI Diversified Income & Convertible Fund Report
for $3.7 billion.
In commodity markets, November crude was gaining 24 cents to trade at $76.73 a barrel. The December gold contract was up by $1.60, to $1,299.70 an ounce.
The dollar was trading lower against a basket of currencies, with the dollar index down by 0.01%, while the benchmark 10-year Treasury note strengthened 9/32, diluting the yield to 2.576%.
Overseas, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1%, and Japan's Nikkei added 1.4%. The FTSE in London was slipping 0.07%, and the DAX in Frankfurt was up by 0.1%.
--Written by Melinda Peer in New York
.
Disclosure: TheStreet's editorial policy prohibits staff editors and reporters from holding positions in any individual stocks.
