Wall Street edges up after two-day run

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged up on Monday ahead of announcements from central banks later in the week after gains in the prior two sessions pushed the benchmark S&P index to its highest close since May 3.

Increasing optimism last week that the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB) might provide further stimulus sparked the S&P 500's biggest two-day rally since December and lifted the Dow above 13,000 for the first time since May 7.

The Fed and the ECB both meet this week amid investor expectations of action to stimulate economic growth and hopes the ECB tackles a spreading euro zone debt crisis. ECB President Mario Draghi said last week the bank was ready to do whatever was necessary, within its mandate, to save the euro.

"You won't get movement either way, the market just has to catch up with itself," said Ken Polcari, managing director at ICAP Equities in New York. "That being the case, certainly everyone thinks that Europe is going to come out with this big bazooka and they also think the Fed will launch so therefore the market is going to stay up here."

A rally in Italian and Spanish government bonds showed signs of exhaustion as investors waited for European policymakers to back up their pledges to safeguard the euro with new anti-crisis measures.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 27.77 points, or 0.21 percent, to 13,103.43. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 2.70 points, or 0.19 percent, to 1,388.67. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 11.00 points, or 0.37 percent, to 2,969.09.

Roper Industries Inc rose 6.6 percent to $105.05 after the company said it will buy privately held Sunquest Information Systems Inc, a provider of diagnostic and laboratory software services to healthcare providers, for about $1.4 billion in cash. The diversified manufacturer also posted second-quarter earnings and raised its full-year 2012 outlook.

S&P 500 companies set to report quarterly earnings on Monday include Anadarko Petroleum Corp and Eastman Chemical Co.

According to Thomson Reuters data through Friday, of the 280 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings to date for Q2 2012, 67 percent have reported earnings above analyst expectations. The average over the past four quarters is 68 percent.

Shaw Group surged 60.8 percent to $44.91 after the engineering company agreed to be acquired by Chicago Bridge & Iron Co for about $3 billion in cash and stock.

Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc plunged 43.6 percent to $6.09 and Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd tumbled 11.8 percent to $46.90 after U.S. health regulators declined to approve wider use of their drug for opioid-induced constipation and asked for more data.

Apple Inc climbed 1.9 percent to $596.29 to help lift the Nasdaq. Jury selection is due to begin on Monday in the United States in a high stakes patent battle between the iPad maker and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the culmination of over a year of pretrial jousting with billions of dollars in the balance.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Dave Zimmerman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stock-futures-signal-slightly-lower-wall-st-open-081522243--finance.html

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