NEW YORK — Deal news gave the stock market a lift Wednesday.
Health care stocks rose after generic drugmaker Mylan bid nearly $29 billion for rival Perrigo. That offset a slump in energy stocks prompted by a big drop in oil prices.
In Europe, oil company Royal Dutch Shell agreed to buy BG Group for $69.7 billion.
Corporations worldwide are seeking to increase growth through acquisitions and have announced almost $1 trillion of deals so far this year, according to data provider Dealogic. That’s giving a boost to stock markets as the acquiring companies typically offer a premium for their targets.
“There’s obviously the big debate about whether (deals are) value-creating or value-destroying,” said Dan Morris, global investment strategist at investment company TIAA-CREF. “But in the short term it is generally good for markets.”
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 5.57 points, or 0.3 percent, at 2,081.90. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 27.09 points at 17,902.51. The Nasdaq composite gained 40.59 points, or 0.8 percent, to 4,950.82.
Investors were parsing the minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting for clues about the timing of a possible interest rate increase, and waiting for companies to start reporting first-quarter earnings.
Alcoa, a metals maker, one of the first major companies to report earnings, said after the close that its revenue fell short of analysts’ expectations. First-quarter earnings, however, beat analysts’ expectations.
Overall, earnings per share are projected to decline by about 3 percent for S&P 500 companies, according to data from S&P Capital IQ. That would be the first contraction since the third quarter of 2009, when the economy was emerging from the Great Recession.
