Loews which owns Loews hotels and CAN financial corporation, also managed to gain 4% after they revealed that internal cost reductions helped their earnings to gain some 16% even after revenues were down. Its results were very impressive and higher than analyst expectations which helped in sending high the company’s stock prices.

Joseph Saluzzi head of equity trading at Themis, argued that since there are no major economic reports that are likely to be out this week then, corporate mergers and earnings will be the main drivers of share prices. 

“We are on a bear run” Saluzzi said. “Speculators are assuming that the market is gaining higher and higher and increasing on the momentum”

Dow Jones has managed to rise for the last consecutive six days by 0.68% increasing 69.48 points to stand at 12,163.63 and this has been its best daily consecutive winning streak since November.

S & P 500 index also hit 1,319.05 points which is a gain of 0.6% and the NASDAQ composite increased its outlook by 0.5% to stand at 2,783.99.

Financial based organizations increased their values by 1.5% which is also the best increase among the 10 company categories that trades on the S & P index.

Lorillard managed to gain some 2% after the organization announced it had increased sales and prices of its Maverick and Newport exclusive brand of cigarettes.

America Online on the other hand shed some 3.4% after announcing that it was going to acquire Huffington Post for a staggering $315 Million. Huffington Post is basically a web site that deals with news and opinions and the companies founder Arianna Huffington will also be joining AOL’s management.

Hasbro Incorporates which makes toys rose marginally by 1.8% even after they reported low earnings which still were more than analyst expectations.

The ten year treasury yield was down from 3.65 to 3.64 late Friday.

Monday was the first trading day since the organization that owns NASDAQ publicly admitted on Saturday that it had been hacked on the previous year and this issue did not affect any trade whatsoever according to the company.

In the New York Stock exchange, for every two shares that rose one fell and the consolidated volume were approximately 4 billion shares.

© 2011 FastSwings.com