The markets retreated from early morning highs but continued trading in positive territory during the midday with the Dow rising 24 points to 18,091. Nasdaq gained 29 points to 5,184.
Ford Motor will move production of all North American small cars to Mexico over the next several years. The automaker has struggled to make a profit on low margin small cars. As part of its plan to expand into the ride sharing market, Ford committed $4.5 billion to develop new electric vehicles for ride sharing fleets.
Twitter launched an application for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Microsoft's Xbox One. The video streaming app will allow users to access content from Twitter's live streaming partners. Ten National Football League games will be live-streamed beginning tomorrow. Videos from Vine and Periscope can also be viewed on a TV screen.
Monsanto agreed to Bayer's increased all-cash acquisition offer of $128 per share. The proposed $66 billion merger between a U.S. seeds company and a German drug and crop chemical maker will create a global behemoth that easily controls more than a quarter of the worldwide market for seeds and pesticides.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 5 to 4 on the NYSE and by more than 9 to 7 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 rose 4 points to 2,131. Bitcoin eased a fraction to $608.
