U.S. equities exploded higher in the stock market today.
Small-cap stocks ripped higher by more than 2%, triggering a big-time breakout in an index that has lagged its U.S. counterparts through all of 2019. The Nasdaq Composite added more than 1.3%, while the S&P 500 added 0.75% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average tacked out gains in excess of 0.6%.
For what is typically a quiet, holiday-shortened week, Monday started off with a bang. It wasn’t just because of the stock market gains though, as a bevy of deal were announced. Let’s get to them.
Merger Monday
Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) made it official, agreeing to acquire TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ:AMTD) in a $26 billion all-stock deal. Just as a reminder, less than two months ago SCHW obliterated the stock prices in the online brokerage space when it moved to $0 commissions. Now, it’s making an all-stock deal to acquire TD Ameritrade? Ok, got it.
LVMH seemed intent on not raising its offer, but the holdout from Tiffany (NYSE:TIF) eventually worked. Over the weekend, the two agreed to the largest luxury goods deal ever. LVMH will pay $135 per share for TIF in the $16.2 billion cash deal. At least LVMH — owner of Veuve Clicquot and Moet, among others — will be able to pop some champagne to news.
eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) announced it will sell its StubHub unit for $4.1 billion to Viagogo. Initially, shares rallied about 6% on the news, but have since given up a bulk of those gains. Remember, eBay spun off PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) a few years ago, too. While it did a great job of acquiring appreciating assets, it still needs to find a way to boost revenue growth on its legacy platform.
Shares ended higher by 2%.
Finally, Novartis (NYSE:NVS) has agreed to buy The Medicines Company (NASDAQ:MDCO) for $85 per share in a deal worth $9.7 billion. This one took Wall Street by surprise, with MDCO spiking more than 22% on the day.
Movers in the Stock Market Today
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock rallied 1% on the day, but closed well off its highs. The move comes after investors continue to digest the Cybertruck unveiling from last week. While the stock declined on Friday after seeing the new vehicle, panic has been avoided after CEO Elon Musk tweeted over the weekend that the truck has already garnered 200,000 pre-orders.
Uber (NYSE:UBER) shares initially fell 6% in pre-market trading after the Transport for London decided to revoke the company’s license in the city. While the move was not totally unexpected, it was determined the company was not “fit and proper” to operate in the city. The CEO called it “just wrong,” while analysts seem mixed on its impact.
On the plus side, shares fell “just” 1.5% on the day.
Disney (NYSE:DIS) shares rose 91 basis points in the stock market today, this time on box office sales for Frozen 2. Did anyone think this would be a bust? The film hauled in $127 million domestically and over $220 million worldwide. This looks like it’s on an easy coast to $1 billion.
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) shares ripped higher by 4.9% on the day and closed near its highs. The move came after an upgrade to an “overweight” rating at Morgan Stanley, who also assigned a $259 price target. Even after Monday’s rally, the target still implies more than 17% upside.
Of course, the move came as little surprise to those who were ready. NVDA and TSLA were also in our Top Stock Trades column.
Bret Kenwell is the manager and author of Future Blue Chips and is on Twitter @BretKenwell. As of this writing, Bret Kenwell is long DIS and NVDA.