The markets traded higher during the midday with the Dow soaring 137 points to 20,050. Nasdaq climbed 41 points to 5,642.
Instead of a long awaited initial public offering, AppDynamics agreed to be acquired by Cisco Systems. Cisco offered $3.7 billion for the maker of application performance monitoring software. AppDynamics had been valued at approximately $1.9 billion during its last financing round over a year ago.
The European Commission will allow Abbott Laboratories to acquire Alere provided that Abbott divest some of Alere's operations. Alere's Epoc, Triage and BNP reagents businesses must be sold before the $5.8 billion acquisition can proceed. However, Abbott filed to terminate the proposed deal last month.
Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk tweeted that he would begin digging tunnels in about a month. Musk had tweeted his frustration with traffic congestion in December and has previously discussed underground tunnels as a way of alleviating congestion in cities. While tunneling is very expensive, Musk is expected to discover a low-cost method of achieving his goal.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 5 to 3 on the NYSE and by nearly 5 to 2 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 index climbed 13 points to 2,293. Bitcoin added $1 to $891.
