NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are rising on Wall Street Monday as the market comes off its biggest monthly gain in four years. Health care stocks were among the winners in afternoon trading as drugmakers Pfizer and AbbVie climbed.
KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average rose 174 points, or 1 percent, to 17,837 as of 3:30 p.m. Eastern time. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was up 26 points, or 1.3 percent, to 2,106. The Nasdaq composite index increased 73 points, or 1.5 percent, to 5,127.
HEALTH CARE: Drug giant Pfizer rose $1.11, or 3.3 percent, to $34.93, the biggest gain in the Dow. The shares slumped late last week on word Pfizer is in talks to buy competitor Allergan. AbbVie, which surged 10 percent Friday on strong third-quarter results, climbed $3.22, or 5.4 percent, to $62.77 after analysts at Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock. Health-care stocks gained 2 percent, nearly twice as much as the broader S&P 500 index.
EARNINGS: Earnings season is nearly through, and the stock market has recovered significantly as companies have reported somewhat better results than initially expected. With 340 companies out of the S&P 500 reporting, third-quarter earnings are down 2.2 percent compared to a year earlier. When earnings season began, analysts were looking for earnings to be down 5.2 percent.
“Companies continue to grind out modestly better earnings than we expected, and if you exclude energy, things actually don’t look too bad,” said Scott Wren, senior global equity strategist for Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
REBOOTING: Hewlett-Packard officially split into two companies over the weekend. HP Inc., which will sell personal computers and printers, rose $1.57, or 13 percent, to $13.82. Hewlett Packard Enterprise will sell commercial computer systems, software and tech services. Its stock edged down two cents to $14.71.
PULL OUT THE PLASTIC: Continuing this year’s big merger news, payments processing giant Visa said it will buy its sister company Visa Europe in a deal that could be worth more than $23 billion. Visa Europe has been a separate company since 2007. Visa dipped $2.61, or 3.3 percent, to $74.95.
OUTBREAK: Chipotle stumbled as an E. coli outbreak linked to restaurants in Oregon and Washington state spread. The Mexican restaurant chain has shut down all 43 of its restaurants in those states. Officials said Friday that more than 20 people have gotten sick and that number is expected to increase as word of the outbreak spreads. No deaths have been reported. Chipotle Mexican Grill lost $15.60, or 2.5 percent, to $624.55.
ENERGY: U.S. crude oil fell 45 cents, or 1 percent, to close at $46.14 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, which is used to price international oils, slid 77 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $48.79 a barrel in London.
In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline edged up 0.4 cent to $1.375 a gallon in New York, heating oil fell a penny to $1.507 a gallon and natural gas fell 6.5 cents to $2.256 per 1,000 cubic feet.
BONDS, CURRENCIES: U.S government bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.17 percent from 2.15 percent Friday. The dollar edged up to 120.74 yen from 120.70 yen and the euro rose to $1.1022 from $1.1003.
METALS: Precious and industrial metals futures closed mixed. Gold fell $5.50 to $1,135.90 an ounce, silver fell 16 cents to close at $15.41 an ounce and copper edged up less than a penny to $2.32 a pound.
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This story has been corrected to show that one of the companies created in the split of Hewlett-Packard is Hewlett Packard Enterprise, not Enterprises.
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