All three major benchmarks are higher
Stocks are higher this afternoon, after this morning's highly-anticipated CPI report met expectations. The Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) is up 300 points with help from a few heavy-hitting tech stocks, hitting record highs as it heads for its largest single-day percentage gain since early November. The S&P 500 Index (SPX) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) are modestly higher as well, while crypto gets another boost from Bitcoin (BTC).
Continue reading for more on today's market, including:
- Behind biotech's surge to 3-year highs.
- GameStop stock rallies on surprise profit.
- Plus, options traders eye potential WBA buyout; PDCO to go private; and CGON slumps on share offering.
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA) is down 8% at $9.58 after news that Sycamore Partners is in talks to acquire the company, and options traders are chiming in. So far, WBA has seen 59,000 calls and 27,000 puts exchanged, which is double the amount typically seen at this point. The December 9.50 call is the most popular, followed by the December 9.50 put, with new positions opening at the latter. Since the start of 2024, WBA is down 63.2%.
Patterson Companies Inc (NASDAQ:PDCO) is up 34.4% at $31.06 at last glance, after news that the dental product supplier will be taken private in a $4.1 billion deal by health investment firm Patient Square Capital. Leerink Partners downgraded PDCO to "market perform" from "outperform," but raised its price target to $31.35 from $29 after the event, while Jefferies lifted its price target to $31.35 from $26. Trading at 52-week highs, the equity is up 9.2% year to date.
Elsewhere, CG Oncology Inc (NASDAQ:CGON) is down 10.4% at $30.21, after the biotech company filed to sell 7.3 million shares of common stock. BNP Paribas Financial Markets was also revealed as a shareholder. Publicly traded since late January, CGON is down 19.1% since the start of this quarter.