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New York - Strength in health care and pharmaceutical shares offset slumping oil-related equities Monday as US stocks finished mostly higher.
Biotech company Medivation rose 4.2% following a report that it signed non-disclosure agreements with other pharma companies after receiving an unsolicited bid last month from French giant Sanofi. Other pharma companies such as Biogen and Gilead Sciences rose one percent or more.
But petroleum-linked shares such as oil-services giant Schlumberger and Apache lost more than three percent as oil prices retreated.
The biggest loser in the Dow was Caterpillar, which makes heavy equipment for the oil and mining industries. It fell 3.5% as commodity prices tumbled.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.2% to 17 705.91.
The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.1% to 2 058.69, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.3% at 4 750.21.
Lending Club plunged 34.9% on news of the sudden resignation of Renaud Laplanche as chief executive following a review of $22m in loans sold to an institutional investor that did not meet the investor's stated criteria.
Freeport-McMoRan sank 10.8% after announcing it reached a deal to sell its majority stake in a copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo to China Molybdenum for $2.65bn. Analysts said the asset sale would help Freeport's efforts to reduce debt, but that the Congo asset had been a promising long-term growth prospect.
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts surged 24.3% on news it agreed to be acquired by JAB Beech for $1.35bn.
Internet giant Baidu, China's equivalent of Google fell 2.6% following a ruling by a Chinese regulatory agency criticizing the company for displaying paid results too high and for not clearly saying which listings are paid for.
The review came in response to public outcry over the death of a student whose family used Baidu to seek a cancer cure.
