Stocks are on pace to close out a strong quarter with a winning session after the White House announced that progress was made in trade talks with China and that delegates from there will be coming to the U.S. next week to continue negotiations.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., personal income rebounded 0.2% in February and spending increased 0.1% in January. The Chicago PMI Business Barometer Index for March came in at 58.7. New home sales rose 4.9% to a 667,000 unit rate in February, which was a surprise to the upside. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment reading for March was revised up from a preliminary 97.8 to a final reading of 98.4.
In trade news, the White House announced that officials, including Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, "continued to make progress during candid and constructive discussions" on trade negotiations during their visit to China and that meetings are planned with Vice Premier Liu He and the Chinese delegation in Washington next week.
In Europe, President of the European Council Donald Tusk called a European Council meeting on April 10 following the rejection of the Brexit withdrawal agreement by the U.K. House of Commons.
TOP NEWS: Wells Fargo (WFC) announced on Thursday night that Tim Sloan, who took over as CEO of the bank in October 2016 after John Stumpf stepped down in the wake of the firm's fake account scandal, is resigning, effective immediately. Allen Parker, the bank's general counsel, will take over as interim CEO while the bank conducts an external search process for a new CEO and president. Chairman Betsy Duke said that "although we have many talented executives within the company, the board has concluded that seeking someone from the outside is the most effective way to complete the transformation at Wells Fargo."
In M&A news, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) announced that independent proxy advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis & Co. both recommend that shareholders vote "for" the approval of the issuance of Bristol-Myers shares in connection with the company's pending merger with Celgene (CELG). Following the news, Bristol shareholder Starboard Value said it was "extremely disappointed" by the proxy voting advisory firms' conclusions, though it has decided to withdraw its proxy solicitation to vote against the Celgene deal. Celgene shares have jumped 7% while Bristol-Myers shares are down about 1% near noon.
DowDuPont (DWDP) shares have slipped 1% after the company updated its previously stated guidance for the first quarter of 2019. As a result of "near-term trends and discrete headwinds in some of its key value chains in the Agriculture and Materials Science divisions," DowDuPont now expects first quarter net sales to be down high-single digits percent, versus its previous guidance of down mid-single digits percent.
Ride-sharing service operator Lyft (LYFT) came public on the Nasdaq market, pricing its IPO at $72 per share and opening for trading at $87.24 per share. Since opening, the shares have been slipping, trading most recently near $83 per share.
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Eagle Materials (EXP), which rose 13% after Sachem Head disclosed an 8.9% stake in the company and said it will seek talks with the company. Also higher were BlackBerry (BB) and Progress Software (PRGS), which gained 15% and 16%, respectively, after reporting quarterly results.
Among the notable losers was AstraZeneca (AZN), which slid 6% after entering a commercialization pact with Daiichi Sankyo for cancer drug candidate DS-8201 with an up front payment of $1.35B and total potential payment of $6.9B. Also lower were Smart Global (SGH) and RH (RH), which fell a respective 21% and 20% after reporting quarterly results.
INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was up 144.30, or 0.56%, to 25,861.76, the Nasdaq was up 40.45, or 0.53%, to 7,709.62, and the S&P 500 was up 11.02, or 0.39%, to 2,826.46.
