Mid-Day Market Update: Dow Rises Over 600 Points; O2Micro International Shares Surge

U.S. stocks traded higher midway through trading, with the Dow Jones gaining more than 600 points on Monday.

The Dow traded up 2.14% to 31,931.82 while the NASDAQ rose 1.57% to 11,529.80. The S&P also rose, gaining, 1.90% to 3,975.67.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Financials shares rose by 2.8% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Forge Global Holdings, Inc. FRGE, up 18% and Ocwen Financial Corporation OCN up 9%.

In trading on Monday, consumer discretionary shares fell 0.8%.

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

TreeHouse Foods, Inc. THS shares shot up 13% to $41.55. Truist Securities upgraded Treehouse Foods from Hold to Buy and raised the price target from $35 to $50.

Shares of VMware, Inc. VMW got a boost, shooting 19% to $114.17 following several reports Broadcom is in talks to acquire the company.

O2Micro International Limited OIIM shares were also up, gaining 18% to $3.46. O2Micro announced the receipt of an updated preliminary non-binding proposal to acquire the company.

Equities Trading DOWN

Evoke Pharma, Inc. EVOK shares tumbled 17% to $2.54 after effect of 1:12 reverse stock split.

Shares of Inotiv, Inc. NOTV were down 13% to $15.92. Inotiv said on May 18, U.S. Department of Justice executed a search and seizure warrant on Cumberland, Virginia facility.

Foghorn Therapeutics Inc. FHTX was down, falling 14% to $11.66. 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 0.4% to $109.81, while gold traded up 0.8% to $1,855.90.

Silver traded up 1.1% to $21.905 on Monday while copper rose 1.5% to $4.3390.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.80%, London’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.35% and Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 1.16%. The German DAX climbed 0.93%, French CAC 40 gained 0.39% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.42%.

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.