U.S. stocks are trading mixed Tuesday on 1st Jun, 2010 at 1:56PM EDT as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 56 points to 10192, the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell less than one point to 1089 and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.6 points to 2260.
Covidien Plc (NYSE:COV, $41.99, -$0.40, -0.94%), the medical-equipment company said Tuesday it will buy stents and other vascular devices maker ev3 Inc. (NASDAQ:EVVV, $22.22, +$3.30, 17.44%) for $2.6 billion. Covidien will may $22.50 per share for ev3, which represents an almost 19% premium over ev3’s Friday closing price of $18.92.
Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ, $46.53, +$0.52, 1.13%) said Tuesday it will lay off about 9,000 workers and spend $1 billion to automate its commercial data centers.
Oil firm BP (NYSE:BP, $37.72, -$5.23, -12.18%) suffered its biggest one-day shares fall for 18 years after the group failed once more to halt the devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Hershey Co. (NYSE:HSY, $48.35, +$1.55, 3.31%) may cut 500 to 600 jobs from its historic 19 E. Chocolate Avenue plant, the home of the chocolate Kiss, in a plan to modernize its manufacturing, Bloomberg reported.
American International Group (NYSE:AIG, $34.81, -$0.57, -1.61%) refused Tuesday to lower the $35.5 billion price tag on its Asian operations, casting major doubt over the planned sale of the unit to the British insurer Prudential (NYSE:PRU, $58.04, +$0.33, 0.57%).