Stock Market News for Dec 22, 2010

Investors’ optimism put the markets on the winning side with major indices achieving two year highs. Reports of strong earnings and a wave of merger and acquisition activities helped markets touch two year highs.

On the international front, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan said China supports European officials’ efforts to negate the negative impact on the global markets, caused due to the euro-zone debt crisis. It was also reported that Fitch Ratings will probably downgrade Greece’s ratings. It is also believed that Moody’s Investor Service will lower Portugal’s A1 rating by a couple of notches. But investors shrugged off any concerns arising out of these to take the markets modestly higher.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.48% to end at 11,533.16. The S&P 500 was up 0.60% to 1,254.60. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.68% to 2,667.61. On the New York Stock Exchange, breadth of the market favored the advancing stocks in the ratio of 2:1 to the declining ones. Volume was on the lighter side.

Coming to some earnings news, shares of Adobe Systems (NYSE:ADBE - Analyst Report) sprung 6.01% after the company’s better-than-expected results. Electronics manufacturing services provider, Jabil Circuit (NYSE:JBL - Analyst Report) soared 10.7% after reporting a fourfold increase in its earnings. Cruise ship operator, Carnival (NYSE:CCL - Analyst Report) gained 4.46% on solid earnings release.

On to some mergers and acquisitions news, Martek Biosciences (NYSE:MATK) surged 35.57% after it agreed to a bid of $1.09 billion or $31.50 a share, from the Dutch group DSM. Coal company Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE:ANR - Snapshot Report) gained 2.78% after it offered to buy rival Massey Energy (NYSE:MEE). Shares of Massey Energy gained 1.24%. Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE:TD - Snapshot Report) agreed to buy Chrysler Financial from Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm, for $6.3 billion. Shares of TD jumped 3.51%.

On a sectoral basis, materials and industrials traded higher. Key stocks, such as Posco (NYSE:PKX - Analyst Report) jumped 4.83%, Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO - Analyst Report) rose 2.37% and Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT - Analyst Report) edged up 1.43% to end in green.

Read the full analyst report on ADBE

Read the full analyst report on JBL

Read the full analyst report on CCL

Read the full analyst report on MATK

Read the full analyst report on ANR

Read the full analyst report on MEE

Read the full analyst report on TD

Read the full analyst report on PKX

Read the full analyst report on RIO

Read the full analyst report on CAT

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DJIA	12454.83	-74.92	-0.60%
NASD	2837.53	-1.85	-0.07%
S&P 500	1317.82	-2.86	-0.22%

Stock Market News for Dec 22, 2010

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