U.S. Movers: Macy's, Occidental Petroleum, Snap

Scott Peters
11 Dec, 2023
New York City

Stocks on Wall Street lacked direction in Monday's trading, and investors awaited rate decisions from the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Swiss National Bank, and the Norges Bank.

The S&P 500 index gained 0.7% to 4,581.86, and the Nasdaq Composite increased 1.3% to 14,322.25.

The yield on 2-year Treasury notes increased to 4.76%, 10-year Treasury notes inched higher to 4.27%, and 30-year Treasury bonds increased to 4.35%.

Macy's jumped 16.7% to $20.22 after the department store retailer received a buyout offer of $5.8 billion from Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. declined 0.8% to $56.0 after the company said it agreed to buy CrownRock for $12 billion.

The company said after the merger, free cash flow is expected to increase on a diluted share basis, including $1 billion in the first year based on the WTI crude oil price of $70 per barrel.

Occidental intends to finance the $12.0 billion purchase with the incurrence of $9.1 billion of new debt, the issuance of approximately $1.7 billion of common equity, and the assumption of CrownRock’s $1.2 billion of existing debt.

The deal will add approximately 170,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and 1,700 undeveloped locations to Occidental's portfolio in the Permian Basin.

The transaction to acquire a Midland, Texas-based company is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024.

Occidental also announced its plan to increase its quarterly cash dividend by 4 cents to 22 cents in February 2024.

Snap jumped 4.5% to $15.80 on reports that the company struck a deal with Amazon to allow the purchase of its products directly on Snapchat.

The deal follows a similar agreement in place between Amazon and Facebook parent Meta, where Facebook users can buy advertised products from Amazon directly in the app on smartphones.