M&A Heats Up

M&A Heats Up

1:00pm (EST)

The bulls came out in a buying mood this morning as mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity continues to pick up and more information about a possible European bailout of Greece has lifted the market.

At midday, the Dow is up 80 points, or 0.8%, to 10,404, while the S&P has climbed 10 points, or 0.9%, to 1,114. The Nasdaq is showing the most strength as the index is up 31 points, or 1.4% to 2,270.

We mentioned the AIG (AIG, $26.30, up $1.53) news this morning and in other M&A activity, OSI Pharmaceuticals (OSIP, $56.41, up $19.39) is up a whopping 52% after getting a buyout offer from Japanese drugmaker, Astellas Pharma. The $3.5 billion takeover offer for OSI Pharmaceuticals is being presented directly to shareholders after being rebuffed several times by executives at OSI.

osip

We saw some action in shares of OSI last week but we didn’t think a buyout was right around the corner. Too bad. The March 35 calls (GHU100320C00035000, $20.90, up $18.70) are up 850%…

In economic news, the Commerce Department said personal spending rose 0.5% in January. Wall Street was looking for an increase of 0.4%. However, personal income edged up 0.1%, below the 0.4% forecast by the pencil pushers. It was the slowest growth in income in four months.

Meanwhile, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said its manufacturing index fell to 56.5 in February from 58.4 in January. Wall Street was looking for a print of 58. The one silver lining was that the report sees manufacturing employment improving. The ISM releases its services industries index on Wednesday.

Before we go, we thought we would mention the strength Sandisk (SNDK, $31.95, up $2.80) is showing today after the company boosted its first-quarter guidance to reflect more demand for memory chips. The 9% pop has the stock at a new 52-week high. Sandisk was on our Watch List but we just missed bagging a 200% return…

sndk

We have some other trades that are doing really well today but obviously we are disappointed we didn’t pull the trigger on Sandisk last week. Current subscribers, check the Members Area for the juicy updates.

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