Pfizer said it would buy Metsera and its pipeline of medicines to potentially treat obesity in a deal initially valuing it at $US4.9 billion. The price tag could go up sharply, by nearly 50 per cent, if Metsera’s candidates win approval from federal regulators and achieve other milestones.
Metsera’s stock jumped 61.9 per cent, and Pfizer’s added 0.7 per cent.
ODP, which runs Office Depot and Office Max, leaped 33.2 per cent after Atlas Holdings agreed to buy it in a deal valued at roughly $US1 billion.
Anywhere Real Estate soared 45.5 per cent after Compass said it would buy the company behind the Coldwell Banker and Corcoran brands in an all-stock deal. They said the combined company is expected to have a total enterprise value of roughly $10 billion, including debt. Compass shares sank 16.6 per cent.
Also on the losing end of Wall Street was Coinbase Global, which fell 3.5 per cent as stocks sank across the crypto industry following a pullback for cryptocurrency prices.
But Coinbase is still up 33 per cent for the year so far thanks to interest in crypto, whose prices have soared to records on expectations for cuts to interest rates by the Federal Reserve.
Stocks have surged since April on hopes that Trump’s tariffs won’t derail global trade and that the Fed will deliver several cuts to rates to boost the economy. The Fed made its first cut of the year last week, and officials indicated they could deliver more through the end of this year and into next.
The US stock market still faces challenges, though. Chief among them is if the Fed does not cut interest rates as many times as investors expect. The Fed is wary because lower rates can give inflation more fuel, and inflation has stubbornly remained above its 2 per cent target.
An update on Friday will show how much prices are rising for US households based on the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, and economists expect it to show a slight acceleration for last month.
Plus, stocks already look too expensive to many professional investors after their prices surged so much.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia.
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Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1 per cent, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.8 per cent for two of the world’s bigger moves.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.13 per cent from 4.14 per cent on Friday.
AP
