A burst of merger activity On Wall St cheered investors on Monday.
Xerox is expanding into data management with a $US9 billion acquisition of ACS. Drugs makers Abbott and Johnson & Johnson are buying into European concerns
Kraft Foods is still trying to succeed with a £10 billion takeover of Chocolate giant Cadbury.
The Dow Jones Index was up 125 points or 1.3% to 9790. The Nasdaq Composite was up 39 to almost 2% to 2130.
Earlier, London was up 1.6% and Frankfurt and Paris were around 2.5% higher.
The Australian 200 Index was down 35 points, 0.75%, to 4677 on Monday.
The NZ sharemarket opens at 3131 on Tuesday after closing up 19 points, 0.6%, on Monday.
At 8.15am, the New Zealand dollar was trading at
71.56 US cents, 82.20 Australian cents, 45.09 pence, 64.20 yen and 0.4902 euro.The Trade Weighted Index was at 65.33.
