US stocks closed higher on Monday but off their intraday highs, as falling oil prices took the shine off a rally.
The S&P 500 market bellwether closed up 0.5% at 2328.
Despite bullish news of a mostly-observed OPEC oil cut in January, oil prices came off on fears that American drillers were ramping up production.
Read: Trending: Oil price recession continues, but small caps lap up tax pledges
The US oil benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, was down 1.8% at $52.89.
The top gainer among S&P 500 stocks was Goodyear Tire Rubber (NASDAQ:GT) up 5.8% to $35.69.
The S&P Midcap 400 ended up 0.3% at 1725 and was led by Chemours Company (NYSE:CC) up 14.2% to $32.12 after news that DuPont (NYSE:DD) and Chemours will pay nearly $671mln to settle thousands of lawsuits related to the release of a chemical from a plant in West Virginia more than a decade ago.
Chemours was spun off from DuPont two years ago. DuPoint shares were also up by 0.8% at $77.82.
The S&P Smallcap 600 ended up 0.2% at 851 and was led by Zeltiq Aesthetics (NASDAQ:ZLTQ) up 13.2% at $55.92 after agreeing to a takeover by Allergan (NYSE:AGN). Allergan shares ended up 0.2% at $246.76.
The wider small-cap Russell 2000, which earlier marked a record high, ended up 0.2% at 1392, whle Toronto’s TSX Composite, which also scaled a record high, ended up 0.2% at 15,755.
Early trading
North American stocks marked record highs on Monday as Canada’s TSX Composite joined Wall Street’s trio higher.
Monday’s rally in the S&P/TSX was built on the back of an advance in healthcare, industrial and financial stocks.
The S&P 500 hit a fresh record high of 2,327.34 and was last up 0.4% at 2,326.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a record high of 20,404.59 and was last seen up 0.6% at 20,396, while the Nasdaq Composite marked a fresh record high of 5,764.72 and was last seen up 0.5% at 5761.
The TSX Composite Index was up 0.1% at 15,747, but earlier in the session it marked an all-time record high, joining its US counterparts, when it scaled 15,769.66.
The gains were not concentrated in large tickers, either.
The main US small cap stock barometer climbed to a new all-time high for the first time in more than two months amid optimism that the Trump administration will propose business tax reforms over the next few weeks.
The Russell 2000 index, which tracks companies with market values of roughly $300mln – $2bn, climbed as much as 0.5% on Monday to 1,395.8, knocking out its December 9, 2016 peak.
The company behind Burger King and the Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons has become the latest to report slowing sales growth in the last three months of last year, as intense competition and a cut back in consumer spending on eating out continue to take its toll on the entire restaurant industry.
Restaurant Brands International (TSE:QSR) said like-for-like sales – a key industry metric – at Burger King grew 2.8% during the fourth quarter. While that’s ahead of the 2.5% growth the market was expecting, it is a sharp slowdown from the 3.9% gain reported in the prior year period. The decline also comes despite the roll out of new items such as hot dogs last year.
With the data not as bad as feared, shares of RBI were up 2.1% at C$68.63 in Toronto.
Meanwhile, Glencore (OTC:GLNCY) has struck a deal to buy out billionaire Israeli-mining entrepreneur Dan Gertler’s stakes in two copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in an agreement that values the assets at $960mln.
The Swiss-based mining and trading house, which is back on the deal making trail after two years of deleveraging, will take Gertler’s 31% stake in the Mutanda Mining joint venture, held through his Fleurette Group, and his 14% stake in Katanga Mining.
Glencore’s ADRs were up 2.6% at $8.20 on Wall Street.
Pre-Open
US stocks are expected to open higher on Monday, testing new record highs, as investors keep the faith in President Donald Trump’s pro-business plans and as global oil supply is set to be curbed.
The S&P 500 market bellwether and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite are indicated up 0.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is seen up 0.3%.
On Friday, US stocks claimed fresh intraday record highs and the session closed higher as the market was impressed with how the White House handled meets or phone calls with both China’s and Japan’s top decision makers.
The first assessment of oil cartel OPEC’s own production since a deal to curb supplies and bolster prices came into effect shows the group has achieved around 92% compliance of its 1.2mln b/d target.
OPEC has cut oil production by around 1.1mln barrels a day as part of its promise to curb output in January, the cartel said in its monthly oil market report on Monday.
But the cartel will now be expecting a supply cull from American drillers, where recent EIA data has pointed to a rapid advance as oil prices started to lift off a two-year nadir. Continued over-supply in the US threatens the OPEC-Russia deal to cut oil and boost prices.
But so far, oil prices are lower on the day. The oil benchmark WTI was down 0.7% at $53.49.
Allergan (NYSE:AGN), the maker of wrinkle-filler Botox said on Monday it has agreed to buy Zeltiq, the maker of CoolSculpting machines that freeze away fat cells for $2.47bn cash.
Allergan’s offer of $56.50 a share represents a 14% premium to Zeltiq’s closing price on Friday and is the latest in a string of small deals engineered by chief executive Brent Saunders after the US government thwarted the company’s planned $160bn merger with Pfizer last April.
Allergan shares were down 0.2% at $245.96 pre-market.