Wall St up on deals, biotech boost

By Rodrigo Campos

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday, extending two sessions of gains for the S&P 500, with deals including a bid from FedEx for a Dutch peer indicating companies still see value in the market.

Shares of FedEx rose 3.3 percent to $172.14 as it seeks to buy Dutch package delivery company TNT Express for $4.8 billion. Two years ago, competition regulators blocked United Parcel Service's bid for TNT because, unlike FedEx, that suitor already had a strong European network.

Deals are "the rational outcome of this environment" of low interest rates, said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

"When you have money in the bank and you either have to return it to shareholders or do something with it … the next thing is you buy a competitor. You put that cash to work."

Healthcare stocks led the advance on the S&P 500 with biotech shares up after four days of losses. The Nasdaq Biotech index added 2.3 percent, its largest gain since mid-March.

Energy shares also gave the market support, with the sector up 0.8 percent as crude futures added to gains.

At 10:48 a.m. EDT (1448 GMT) the Dow Jones industrial average rose 98.9 points, or 0.55 percent, to 17,979.75, the S&P 500 gained 8.84 points, or 0.42 percent, to 2,089.46 and the Nasdaq Composite added 30.79 points, or 0.63 percent, to 4,948.10.

General Motors shares fell 2 percent to $67.25 after Canada agreed to sell nearly 73.4 million shares of the automaker to Goldman Sachs.

Informatica Corp jumped 4.3 percent to $47.78 after the enterprise software provider said it would be taken private by Permira Advisers and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for about $5.3 billion.

In yet another deal, Axalta Coating Systems said Berkshire Hathaway would buy an 8.7 percent stake in the paint company from controlling shareholder Carlyle Group for $560 million. Axalta shares gained 7 percent to $30.31.

Viacom shares fell 2 percent to $67.23 after it halted its $20 billion repurchase program as it embarks on a restructuring that includes cutting jobs and reorganizing three of its domestic network groups.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 1,559 to 1,258, for a 1.24-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,541 issues rose and 954 fell for a 1.62-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

The benchmark S&P 500 index was posting 9 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 43 new highs and 12 new lows.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)