Stocks posted broad declines last week as the tech sell-off continued to shake up the market. The Nasdaq fell more than 4.0%, while the S&P 500 and DJIA lost 2.5% and 1.7%, respectively.
Early-morning futures action indicates the market is headed for a higher open. Nasdaq futures jumped 1.3% ahead of the open, while S&P 500 futures gained 1.0%.
Stocks were mostly higher in Asia overnight. Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.7% and China’s Shanghai Composite jumped 0.6%. In Europe, markets are split between modest losses and slim gains. The Eurozone Stoxx 600 is currently flat.
Today’s featured earnings schedule includes post-close reports from Aspen Group [ASPU] and Lennar [LEN].
Here’s what’s moving the market this morning:
Oracle Corp. (ORCL)
Oracle won its bid to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations from Beijing-based ByteDance, but it’s a complicated deal. New Chinese national security laws make acquiring TikTok’s proprietary algorithm a complicated task. Early reports indicate the Oracle acquisition will function more like a partnership than a straight-up buyout.
The Silicon Valley tech firm has no history in the social media space, but it’s hoping the acquisition will help it kick-start its struggling cloud computing business. Oracle beat out a competing effort from Microsoft [MSFT] and Walmart [WMT] to win the bid. The deal’s financial details haven’t been released as of yet.
ORCL is this morning’s most active S&P 500 stock and it’s currently up 10.3% in the extended-hours trading session.
NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA)
NVIDIA is ticking higher in the pre-market after announcing a record-breaking acquitision. On Sunday, NVIDIA announced it had acquired Softbank’s UK-based chip manufacturer Arm Ltd. The $40 billion cash-and-stock deal is the chip sector’s largest transaction ever, and it’s expecting to close in about 18 months.
NVDA is up 5.7% on active trading volume in the pre-market trading session.
Immunomedics Inc. (IMMU)
Shares of Immunomedics are skyrocketing on news that Gilead Sciences [GILD] will acquire the mid-cap drugmaker. Gilead will pay $88 per share to acquire Immunomedic’s outstanding stock for a total cost of $21 billion. The deal will bolster Gilead’s cancer drug portfolio with the addition of Immunomedic’s breast cancer drug Trodelvy, which received accelerated FDA approval in April.
Gilead is paying a 108% premium to acquire Immunomedics, but the market is already closing the gap. IMMU is one of this morning’s most active stocks and its up 106.3% in the pre-market.
J.Jill (JILL)
Women’s apparel retailer J.Jill obtained support from its lenders for an out-of-court alternative to a bankruptcy fling. The firm avoided bankruptcy by securing support from 95% of its lenders to an out-of-court settlement that allowed the firm to postpone its debt maturities by two years until May 2024. Lenders also agreed to provide the retailer with at least $15 million in additional loans.
If J.Jill couldn’t get the support from its lenders, it would’ve been forced to file for bankruptcy with a pre-packaged Chapter 11 reorganization plan. J.Jill must’ve made a persuasive case to to convince its lenders to sign-off on the deal and lend them more money.
News of the out-of-court settlement set off a sharp relief rally in shares of JILL. The stock is trading actively and it’s up 76.3% in the extended hours trading session.
