Stocks Are Higher Amid Massive Deal News
The Dow up 62 points, the S&P 500 is up 7 points, and the Nasdaq is up 17 points.
The biggest news of the day is Rupert Murdoch's offer to buy Time Warner for $80 billion, which Time Warner rejected. Shares of Time Warner were up more than 15% following the news.
In economic news, the producer price index for June showed prices rose 0.4% over last month, more than the 0.2% that was expected. Excluding food and energy, prices rose 0.2%.
Homebuilder confidence in July rose to 53 from 49, according to data from the NAHB, better than the 50 that was forecast by economists and the first reading above 50 since January.
Industrial production data showed that in June, production slowed to 0.2%, below expectations for a gain of 0.3% and down from May's revised reading of a 0.5% increase.
CNBC is also hosting its Delivering Alpha conference today, featuring a number of noted hedge fund managers, including Leon Cooperman, who gave his 12 favorite stock picks, which included KKR, Citigroup, and Thermo Fisher. Our wall-to-wall coverage of Delivering Alpha will be on Clusterstock all day.