Midnight Trader | Apr 22, 2014 04:16PM ET
Stocks extended their rally to a sixth day, drifting off their best levels in afternoon trade and led by broad gains for healthcare stocks following a $28.5 million asset swap between Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS), GlaxoSmithKline Plc. (NYSE:GSK), and Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE:LLY). Market-friendly data along with strong earnings by Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and a positive outlook by McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) also kept the major market gauges on positive ground.
Big Deals
Deal-making among pharmaceutical companies helped propel healthcare stocks to a market-leading position Tuesday. In pair of transactions, NVS will sell most of its animal-health division to LLY for $5.4 billion while also selling most of its vaccines division to GSK for $7.1 billion. In return, NVS will pay up to $16 billion to acquire new cancer drugs from the other two firms.
Also Tuesday, AstraZeneca PLC. (AZN) slipped about 3% -- giving back a portion of Monday's 8% advance -- after reportedly rebuffing a $100 billion takeover offer by Pfizer (NYSE:PFE). Neither company has commented on the market rumors.
Tepid Data
Eearlier Tuesday, the Commerce Department reported existing home sales fell 0.2% in March to a seasonally-adjusted annual pace of 4.59 million, still better than the 0.8% drop the Street was expecting. Also, the Richmond Fed manufacturing index Tuesday reversed a 7.0 decline last month to record a 7.0-point rise in April, beating expectations for the index to rise to a 0.0 reading this month.
Commodities were mostly higher although crude oil for May delivery settled $2.24 lower at $102.13 per barrel in moderate profit-taking after the front-month contract hit a year-to-date high yesterday. May natural gas was up 4 cents to finish at $4.74 per 1 million BTU. June gold fell $7.10 to $1281.10 per ounce while May silver added 2 cents to $19.36 per ounce. May copper settled a penny higher at $3.05 per pound.
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