US STOCKS-Wall Street set for higher open on M&A activity, vaccine…

<br>By Medha Singh and Devik Jain<br> <br>Sept 14 (Reuters) – Futures pointed to a higher open for Wall Street on Monday on signs of progress in developing a COVID-19 vaccine and a flurry of multi-billion dollar deals, including reports of Oracle winning the battle for the U.S.

arm of TikTok.<br> <br>Shares of Oracle surged 6% to near record highs in premarket trading, leading gains among the S&P 500 constituents after sources said the cloud services firm was entering a deal with TikTok-owner ByteDance structured as a partnership to navigate geopolitical tensions.<br> <br>A Microsoft Corp-led consortium that included Walmart Inc was also in talks for TikTok’s U.S.

business. Their shares fell marginally.<br> <br>Nvidia Corp jumped 5.8% on plans to buy UK-based chip designer Arm from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp for as much as $40 billion, in a deal set to reshape the global semiconductor landscape.<br> <br>”Wall Street always rewards growth,” said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh.<br> <br>”That’s why these deals are exciting, because if you put two companies together, by definition, you’re going to have inorganic growth, but you’re going to see growth.”<br> <br>The S&P 500 is coming off of two straight weeks of losses, its first such pace of declines since the coronavirus-led crash in March, as investors sold heavyweight technology shares that had powered the benchmark index to record highs in five-months.<br> <br>On Monday, Amazon.com rose about 2% after the online shopping giant said it is hiring 100,000 more workers in its latest job spree for the United States this year – to keep pace with e-commerce demand that jumped during the pandemic.<br> <br>Apple Inc, Facebook.com and Google-parent Alphabet Inc rose between 1% and 1.4%.<br> <br>At 8:18 a.m.

ET, Dow e-minis were up 238 points, or 0.86%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 38 points, or 1.14% and ngentot di kamar mandi Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 143 points, or 1.29%.<br> <br>Global equities also got a lift on Monday after drugmaker AstraZeneca resumed its British clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine, one of the most advanced in development.<br> <br>Pfizer Inc gained 2.1% after the drugmaker and German biotech firm BioNTech SE proposed expansion of their Phase 3 pivotal COVID-19 vaccine trial to about 44,000 participants.<br> <br>Later this week investors will focus on the Federal Reserve’s last policy meeting before the Nov.

3 U.S. presidential elections.<br> <br>Gilead Sciences Inc slipped 1.4% as it said will acquire biotech company Immunomedics Inc for $21 billion, a move that will strengthen its cancer portfolio by gaining access to a promising drug.<br> <br>Shares of Immunomedics more than doubled in value.
(Reporting by Medha Singh and Devik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)<br>