Top 10 News Items: Stocks Rally To Start September, Jobs Better Than Expected, M&A Fever
Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street:
1. After a horrible August, the first few trading days of September had investors pouring money back into stocks. The S&P 500 is up 5 percent so far this month.
2. Friday brought the much-anticipated jobs number, which surprised to the upside. Nonfarm payrolls in August were down 54,000, as 114,000 temporary census jobs were ended and state and local governments cut 10,000 positions. Economists had been looking for a loss of 105,000 jobs. The report showed that the private sector added a net total of 67,000 new jobs last month, higher than the economist estimate of a rise of 40,000 jobs.
3. The frenzied bidding war for 3Par (NYSE: PAR) came to an end this week after Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ) raised its offer to $33 per share and Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) was unwilling to top it. Bidding for 3Par started on August 16, when Dell announced an agreement to acquire the company for $18 per share, which was a hefty premium to the prior day's close of $9.65.
4. Burger King Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BKC) agreed to be acquired for $3.26 billion by the private-equity firm 3G Capital, or $4 billion with the assumption of the company’s debt.
5. Manufacturing date on Wednesday showed it is a rare bright spot for the sluggish economy. The Institute for Supply Management said Wednesday that its manufacturing Index rose to 56.3 in August, as the manufacturing sector continues to the be the driving force in the economic recovery. The reading was up from 55.5 in July. Economists had expected the ISM index to fall to 52.8 last month as fears of a double-dip recession gripped the economy. A reading above 50 signals growth.
6. Consumer confidence showed a rebound. The Conference Board, a private research group, reported Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose to 53.5 in August from an upwardly revised 51.0 last month. The original reading for July was reported at 50.4.
7. The SEC is probing the practice of "quote stuffing," which is a practice of trading in unusually large numbers to buy or sell stocks in fractions of a second that are almost immediately canceled, causing a distortion of stock prices.
8. With M&A action hot and heavy this week, the rumor mill was in overdrive. Some notable names getting takeover chatter this week were Saks (NYSE: SKS), Compellent Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: CML), Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD), Wendy's (NYSE: WEN), and ArcSight, Inc. (ARST). Track all the latest developments in M&A at StreetInsider.com's M&A Central.
9. Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and JPMogan (NYSE: JPM) both shuttered some prop-trading operations to comply with the Volcker rule. Goldman is reportedly closing its principal-strategies unit. JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) is closing its commodities trading unit.
10. Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) held an event Wednesday and wowed loyalists with an update iPod line-up and new smaller, cheaper Apple TV product.
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