U.S. Stocks Rise to Records Amid Deals, Retail Earnings

Story by Bloomberg
Written by Callie Bost

U.S. stocks rose, with benchmark indexes climbing to records, amid corporate deals and as better-than-estimated results from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. led retailers higher.

Wal-Mart jumped 3.7 percent after earnings topped estimates. DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. soared 16 percent after people briefed on the matter said Hasbro Inc. is in talks to acquire the company. Procter & Gamble Co. was little changed after selling its Duracell battery business to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Kohl’s Corp. slid 3.4 percent as sales missed forecasts.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.3 percent to 2,043.40 at 9:58 a.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 55.26 points, or 0.3 percent, to 17,667.46. Trading in S&P 500 stocks was 15 percent below the 30-day average at this time of day.

“One of the positives for the market are positive reactions from retail names to earnings,” Joe Bell, a Cincinnati-based senior equity analyst at Schaeffer’s Investment Research Inc., said by phone. “A lot of the consumer discretionary sector had low expectations coming into this season, but we saw positive results from Macy’s yesterday and Wal-Mart today.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-13/u-s-index-futures-gain-as-dreamworks-shares-surge.html