US Market ended considerably higher in the Christmas Eve short trading day on Monday, 24 December, 2007. The top story of the day was the Merrill Lynch sale of stake to a Singapore based investment fund. Other than that, there was not much of any other catalyst for the market. Crude oil prices ended the session higher by almost 30 cents at $93.6/barrel.

The Dow Jones industrial Average ended the day with a gain of 98.87 points at 13,549.33. The Nasdaq Composite Index, finished higher by 21.51 points at 2,713.5. S&P; 500 finished higher by 11.99 points at 1,496.45. Alcoa and GE were a couple of main Dow winners for the day.

Merrill Lynch deal news gave a good boost to the financial sector. The stocks climbed up by 5% to more than $58. The company announced that it will receive up to $6.2 billion from equity sales to the Singapore government wealth fund Temasek Holdings and to Davis Selected Advisors.

Also in the news was Alcoa. The aluminum giant announced last week that it has finally agreed to sell its packaging and consumer businesses to New Zealand-based Rank Group for $2.7 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the first quarter. Alcoa shares rose by almost 2%.

Apple shares were mainly responsible for taking Nasdaq higher. Shares of Apple crossed $200 mark for the first time. It ended the day higher by 2.5% at $198.5.

Advancers lead decliners by better than a 5:2 ratio on the NYSE and about 3:2 on the Nasdaq. Volume was modest, as would be expected on a partial holiday.

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