Paramount Skydance Jumps After Ellison Sweetens Bid

Stocks closed higher on Wall Street on Monday at the start of what's expected to be a relatively calm holiday week.

• The S&P 500 rose 43.99 points, or 0.6%, to 6,878.49. The index is just below the all-time high it set earlier this month.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 227.79 points, or 0.5%, to 48,362.68.
• The Nasdaq composite rose 121.21 points, or 0.5%, to 23,428.83.

Gold and silver touched records and oil prices jumped after the US Coast Guard said it was pursuing another sanctioned oil tanker in the Caribbean, the AP reports. The gains on Monday were broad, with technology companies and banks leading the way. JPMorgan Chase rose 1.8% and Nvidia rose 1.5%.

Uber rose 2.5% and Lyft rose 2.7% after announcing plans to bring robotaxi services to London next year. Paramount Skydance rose 4.3%. The company sweetened its hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery with an "irrevocable personal guarantee" from Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle and father of Paramount CEO David Ellison. He is putting up billions of dollars to back the deal as part of the latest move in Paramount's bidding war against Netflix. Warner Bros. Discovery rose 3.5% and Netflix fell 1.2%. Dominion Energy slipped 3.7% after the Trump administration said it is pausing leases for five large-scale offshore wind projects. They include Dominion's Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.

The broader market eked out a slight gain last week in what has been a choppy month. Technology companies, especially those focused on artificial intelligence, have been the main force behind the market's oscillations. The direction of AI-related stocks will likely determine whether the market closes out December with gains or losses. "If a Santa Claus rally does kick in this year, St. Nick's gift bag will likely need to be full of positive tech sentiment," wrote Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.

Markets in the US will close early on Wednesday for Christmas Eve and remain closed on Thursday for Christmas. The short week for trading includes several economic reports that could shed more light on the condition and direction of the US economy. On Tuesday, the government releases the first of three estimates on gross domestic product, a reflection of how the broader US economy fared in the third quarter. On Wednesday, the Labor Department will release its weekly data on applications for jobless benefits, which stands as a proxy for US layoffs.