Caterpillar A Part Of Positive Day On Wall Street: Acadiana Business Index

Wall Street rises on a slew of merger announcements and strong results from Caterpillar, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 105 points. Mark Lasseigne has your market report on today's Acadiana Business Index. 

• Caterpillar reported strong earnings, as it sees demand continuing for its mining and construction equipment. Caterpillar also guided to the high end of its previous 2011 outlook. CAT up 5% to $91.77.

A list of merger and acquisition deals also supported the market.

• Cigna made a $3.8 billion deal for HealthSpring.

• Oracle said it would buy the cloud-computing firm RightNow Technologies in a deal valued at $1.4 billion.

• Sara Lee sold the majority of its North American coffee and tea operations to J.M. Smucker for $350 million.

• And Mattel agreed to buy HIT Entertainment, which sells the Bob the Builder and Fireman Sam toy lines, for $680 million.

• Crude oil ended at $91.27 a barrel.

• And Gold closed at $1,652 an ounce.