NEW YORK — A round of corporate deals helped the broad stock market eke out only its second day of gains this month.
Wendy’s/Arby’s Group rose nearly 1 percent after the company said it would sell control of its Arby’s restaurant business to a private equity firm that owns several other quick-service franchises, including Moe’s Southwest Grill and Auntie Anne’s. And clothing maker VF, whose brands include Wrangler and The North Face, jumped 10 percent after agreeing to buy the bootmaker Timberland for more than $2.2 billion.
“There’s life out there in the markets, and maybe if investors won’t buy stocks, companies will,” said Kim Caughey Forrest, senior equity analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group. “Companies have a lot of cash on their balance sheets, and there are good mergers and acquisitions out there to be had.”
After last week’s fall below 12,000, its first since March, the Dow Jones industrials made a bid to reclaim that level before closing under it.
When big companies use their cash to make an acquisition, it signals a belief that there are values in the market, said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research.
“That’s a good sign of confidence when we desperately need some,” Detrick said.
The Dow gained 1.06 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to close at 11,952.97. The Standard and Poor’s 500 inched up 0.85 point, less than 0.1 percent, to 1,271.83. The Nasdaq composite lost 4.04, or 0.2 percent, to 2,639.69.
All three indexes are down more than 4 percent over the last month because of concerns that the U.S. economy is stalling.
