Stocks fall flat as Monsanto and Apple can't take charge. Catch The Final Round at 4 PM ET with Jen Rogers and Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer.
Winners and losers
Stocks starting the week on a down note include insurer Cigna as the Wall Street Journal reports it and Anthem are fighting over terms of their planned $48 billion merger, offshore driller Transocean after Citi reiterated a sell rating on the stock, and Tribune Publishing after Tribune's board rejected rival Gannett's latest merger offer.
Stocks pushing higher today include LendingClub as the troubled online lender hired Jeffries to find investors for its loan funding, payment processor First Data after a positive Barron's piece over the weekend, and Monsanto. The agro-chemical firm surged as drugmaker Bayer bid $122 a share, or $62 billion, including debt for the company.
The state of the markets
Joining The Final Round for more on the markets is Jurrien Timmer, Director of Global Macro at our sponsor Fidelity Investments, and featured speaker on the Fidelity Viewpoints State of the Market webcast. Timmer says the recent run-up in the market was just a 'sugar rally,' and tells us what's needed for stocks to break out of their range-bound ways.
The Fed's John Williams: more rate hikes are coming
Here's a major question for investors this summer: Will the Fed raise rates? And what could be the possible fallout? Yahoo Finance editor-in-chief Andy Serwer speaks with San Francisco Fed President John Williams to get his outlook on rate hikes for this year, and 2017. NOTE: the full interview with John Williams and a transcript of that interview will be published on Tuesday. May 24th.
Looking ahead
At 10 AM Eastern we'll get big housing data with new home sales for April. The consensus reading is for 523,000 homes sold.
We'll get more earnings from Best Buy, Autozone, Toll Brothers, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
And the Solar Impulse 2, a purely solar powered plane, takes off on the latest leg of its mission to complete its round the world journey. Taking off form Dayton Ohio, it will take around 17 hours to get its next destination, Lehigh Valley Airport in Pennsylvania.
