Pfizer to Buy Allergan in $160B Deal
Claman on Call: FBN’s Liz Claman with an after-hours web exclusive on the markets, Chipotle, the Pfizer-Allergan deal and gold prices.
The bulls taking a breather today after last week's gains, basically closing flat to slightly lower today.
The Dow finished around 31 points lower. The S&P closed about 2 and a half points in the red. And the Nasdaq finishing less than 2 and a half points lower.
Chipotle, shrugging off the bad press. Closing up more than 4 percent today after tumbling to an 18-month low on Friday when word broke that the E.coli outbreak at the fast-food chain had spread past Washington and Oregon to four additional states: Ohio, New York, California and Minnesota.
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer will buy Allergan to form a $160 billion global drug behemoth. The combined businesses will be renamed Pfizer but legally will be combined under Allergan to move its headquarters to Ireland to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
Home improvement retailers Home Depot, Lowe's riding high on poor existing home sales? Both stocks hitting all-time highs as existing home sales fell more than expected in October. A sign people will continue to fix up what they got, instead of buying new.
And gold not so shiny today as it posted its lowest close since February 2010. Gold futures settled sharply lower as the U.S. dollar got a boost from growing expectations that the federal reserve will raise interest rates in December. Gold fell $9.50 to settle at $1,066.80 an ounce.