Corporate deals trigger broad rally

Wall Street kicked off the week with a broad rally Monday, clawing back much of the stock market’s losses from last week.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 1.3%, led by gains in technology, healthcare and financial stocks. Small company stocks were among the biggest gainers.

The rally reversed a big slice of the index’s 2.5% slide last week, when the S&P 500 posted its biggest weekly decline since June. Treasury yields were mostly higher.

The market’s strong start to the week is a reversal after a mostly downward shift this month led by a sell-off in tech stocks that many analysts said was long overdue.

The S&P 500 gained 42.57 points to 3,383.54. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 327.69 points, or 1.2%, to 27,993.33. The Nasdaq, which includes many tech stocks, picked up 203.11 points, or 1.9%, to 11,056.65.

Small company stocks climbed more than the rest of the market, sending the Russell 2000 higher. The index rose 39.70 points, or 2.7%, to 1,536.97.

Several big corporate deals helped put investors in a buying mood Monday.

Nvidia jumped 5.8% after announcing plans to buy fellow chipmaker Arm Holdings in a deal worth up to $40 billion. Oracle climbed 4.3% after the business software maker beat out Microsoft to become the “trusted technology provider” of TikTok, the popular video-sharing app based in China.

And the stock of Immunomedics nearly doubled after the cancer drug specialist agreed to be acquired by Gilead Sciences in a $21-billion deal. Gilead shares rose 2.2%.

AstraZeneca added 0.5% after news over the weekend that clinical trials for the pharmaceutical company’s coronavirus vaccine will resume after being paused because of a reported side effect in a patient in Britain.

Wall Street has been riding a surge in volatility the last couple of weeks as investors turned cautious after a five-month rally for stocks fueled largely by a run-up in big tech companies.

Despite their September stumble, stocks retain much of their gains since setting record highs less than two weeks ago. The S&P 500 is up 4.7% for the year. The Nasdaq is up 23.2%.

Even so, analysts expect more volatility for stocks in the months ahead as the market navigates uncertainty over the presidential election, pessimism about a deal to send more aid to unemployed workers and an economy still struggling amid the pandemic.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 0.68% from 0.67% late Friday.

European markets ended mixed; Asian markets closed broadly higher.