More M&A News After The Long Weekend

Hope you had a good Memorial Day weekend. The market is getting an early bounce on more M&A news this morning.

RBS Group is raising its bid for ABN Amro (ABN) to $95.5 billion. URS Corp (URS) agreed to pay $2.6 billion for Washington Group (WNG). Avaya (AV) is reportedly in talks with Silver Lake Partners to go private, and CDWC is also reportedly in talks. Also Archstone-Smith (ASN) is rumored to being bought for $12 billion. All of the above stocks are up nicely so far.

Sentiment got a boost this morning when the Consumer Confidence index came out at 108.0 vs. 104.5 consensus. It also helps that oil is falling a buck this morning, to $64.11. Bond yields are up slightly, with the 10-year at 4.87%.

Asian markets were mostly higher overnight, and the Yen continues to be subdued versus the dollar. We don't want to see a sharp rally in the Yen, because that always freaks out investors who worry about the Yen carry trade.

There are lots and lots of economic reports packed into this shortened trading week, so it should be interesting. There are also a couple of notable earnings reports coming in.