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New York - US stocks pushed higher on Thursday with the Dow striking a new record spurred by strong results from Walmart and Berkshire Hathaway's $4.7bn takeover of Duracell.
After a day of wide swings, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 40.59 points (0.23%) at 17 652.79, topping the previous highest close on Tuesday.
The broad-market S&P 500 fell shy of a new mark, adding 1.08 (0.05%) at 2 039.33, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite gained 5.01 (0.11%) at 4 680.14.
Warren Buffett's cash-laden investment house Berkshire said it would pay Procter & Gamble $4.7bn worth of P&G shares to take over Duracell.
The company reportedly has 25% of the global battery market with $2bn in annual sales.
As part of the deal, P&G is committed to injecting $1.8bn into Duracell to recapitalise it.
Berkshire B shares rose 0.5%, while P&G lost 1.0%.
Wal-Mart Stores shares surged 4.7% on forecast-beating third-quarter earnings.
The huge retailer overcame a fall in US store traffic with price rises and strong gains in its small Neighborhood Market chain to turn in earnings per share of $1.15, three cents higher than analysts expected.
Reports late in the session of a possible Halliburton takeover of Baker Hughes sent shares of oil services companies flying.
Baker Hughes soared 15.2% and Halliburton was up 1.1%, while much larger rival Schlumberger fell 2.7%. Fracking specialist C&J Energy Services jumped 6.3%.
Amazon rose 1.6% after announcing a deal with publisher Hachette to end their six-month dispute over book pricing that had stirred complaints of Amazon's huge power in the market.
In other major tech shares, Cisco rose 2.3% and Apple gained 1.4%.
Bond prices were mixed. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury fell to 2.35% from 2.36% on Wednesday, while the 30-year was flat at 3.08%.
