Gain puts Dow into black for ’15
NEW YORK — Stocks posted solid gains Monday, adding to last month’s big advances and pushing the Dow Jones industrial average into positive territory for 2015.
Health care stocks were among the winners as drugmakers Pfizer and AbbVie climbed, while energy stocks rose sharply in a late-day rally.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 165.22 points, or 0.9 percent, to 17,828.76. The gain made the Dow the last of the three major U.S. market indexes to return to positive territory for 2015.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 24.69 points, or 1.2 percent, to 2,104.05 and the Nasdaq composite rose 73.40 points, or 1.5 percent, to 5,127.15.
Health care stocks continued to rally. Drug giant Pfizer rose $1.24, or 3.7 percent, to $35.05, the second-biggest gain in the Dow. The shares slumped late last week on word Pfizer is in talks to buy competitor Allergan.
AbbVie, which surged 10 percent Friday on strong thirdquarter results, climbed $3.83, or 6.4 percent, to $63.38 after analysts at Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock.
Health care stocks gained 2 percent, nearly twice as much as the broader S&P 500 index. Energy stocks rose even more, by 2.4 percent. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Chesapeake Energy and others rose 3 percent or more.
Visa was among the biggest decliners. The payments processor gave up $2.36, or 3
percent, to close at $75.22 after saying it would buy its sister company Visa Europe in a deal that could be worth more than $23 billion. The company warned that 2016 earnings could be hurt as the company finances the debt and stock to pay for the deal.
A lot of focus for investors is on company earnings, which continue to roll out this week. Earnings season is nearly through, and the stock market has recovered significantly as companies have reported somewhat better results than initially expected.
With 340 companies out of the S&P 500 reporting, thirdquarter earnings are down 2.2 percent compared to a year earlier. When earnings season began, analysts were looking for earnings to be down 5.2 percent.
“Companies continue to grind out modestly better earnings than we expected, and if you exclude energy, things actually don’t look too bad,” said Scott Wren, senior global equity strategist for Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
In other company news, Hewlett-Packard officially split into two companies over the weekend.
HP Inc., which will sell personal computers and printers, rose $1.59, or 13 percent, to $13.83. Hewlett Packard Enterprise will sell commercial computer systems, software and tech services. Its stock edged down 23 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $14.49.
In other markets, U.S. crude oil fell 45 cents, or 1 percent, to close at $46.14 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, which is used to price international oils, slid 77 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $48.79 a barrel in London.
U.S government bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.18 percent from 2.15 percent Friday. The dollar edged up to 120.74 yen from 120.70 yen, and the euro rose to $1.1022 from $1.1003.