Market Talk

Bulls kick off the week flexing their muscles.

US stocks wipe away much of Friday’s losses as everything seems to fall the bulls’ way.

Rising consumer spending and increasing auto sales as well as manufacturing activity hitting its highest level since July 2004 boosts sentiment. The market, which loves M&A, got a big, headline making deal with United and Continental. And what finally seems like a resolution to Greece’s debt woes contributed to the run-up.

Consumer discretionaries among the market’s biggest gainers as the consumer is slowly returning to pre-recession habits. Consumers increased their spending and cut their savings in March, not a good sign for the long-term economy but a positive development for these stocks in the short-term.

DJIA closes up 143, or 1.3%, to 11152, marking its biggest gain since Feb. 16 and fourth largest gain of the year. The index recaptured roughly 90% of Friday’s 159-point drop. Still, this marked the fourth triple-digit move out of the last six sessions, and that kind of volatility doesn’t exactly speak to overriding confidence.

Dow components Caterpillar and Boeing each rise 2.7% and contribute to about 20% of the index’s overall gain. The floats of those two stocks are among the smallest of the 30 in the average, so when the momentum gets cooking, as it did today, it’s easier to see a more pronounced increase (or decrease) in the dollar-value change in those stock prices.

S&P rises 16 to 1202, crossing back above the key 1200 level. Nasdaq Comp jumps 38 to 2499.

(John Shipman and Paul Vigna contributed to this post.)

US stocks post their biggest gain in almost two months as investors put worries about European debt woes aside for a day and focus on strong earnings reports and improving manufacturing conditions in the Midwest.

DJIA rises 122 to 11167, its biggest gain since March 5. S&P 500 jumps 15 to 1207 and Nasdaq Comp rises 40 to 2512. All 10 S&P 500 sectors finish higher, with finanicals, industrials and consumer discretionary leading the way.

Investors were jittery after S&P downgraded Greece, Portugal and Spain. But no one’s downgraded today and stocks soar.

Go figure.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) proves to be Palm’s white night, swooping in and buying the embattled smartphone pioneer late yesterday for about $1B. Palm shares soared 26% to $5.84, above H-P’s $5.70 bid. H-P drops 0.8% to $52.88.

Exxon’s 1Q earnings soared 38%, but still fell short of analysts’ expectations, in part due to a $200 million charge tied to US health care legislation. Shares fell 0.8% to $68.66.

And WSJ just reported Continental (CAL) and UAL Corp.’s (UAUA) United Airlines are expected to announce Monday that they’re merging. A combination would form the world’s largest airline by traffic.

- Don’t dismiss the notion that retail spending is being partly driven by homeowners strategically defaulting on mortgages, even though it’s hard to quantify exactly hoe many people are “spending the mortgage,” Paul Jackson writes at HousingWire.

- Small businesses, which have led job creation in previous recoveries, may be finally contributing to job growth now as the economy rebounds, Atlanta Fed’s macroblog says.

- “The Squid has been living for years off the simple fact that, like the fabled IBM of yore, no-one ever got fired (or sued) for picking Goldman Sachs,” the Epicurean Dealmaker notes. “That calculus has been changed,” and everyone knows it.

- Google’s (GOOG) recent acquisition of secretive early-stage start-up Agnilux ranks as the “most curious” deal in its history, Digital Daily blogger John Paczkowski says.

- Picking apart Apple’s (AAPL) blowout earnings, Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer says Apple’s iPhone business is growing much faster internationally than it is in the US.

- Lots of merger chatter swirling swirling around UAL Corp’s (UAUA) United Airlines. And while a deal might make sense for operational reasons, Footnoted’s Theo Francis notes the company has made it “substantially more attractive” for its top executives to seal a deal.

- Facebook’s launching an ambitious plan to essentially take over the Internet.

- Looks like Adobe (ADBE has finally given up on getting Flash on the iPhone. “We will still be shipping the ability to target the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5,” Mike Chambers, Adobe’s principal product manager for the Flash platform, writes on his blog. “However, we are currently not planning any additional investments in that feature.”

- Investors take note: A stock-market indicator with a good long-term record has flashed a buy signal.

- The grudge match over your 401(k)