Stocks rallied Wednesday in the wake of healthy earnings reports, positive manufacturing news and a flurry of buyout offers, powering the Dow Jones industrials to another record close and the S&P 500 to its highest level in more than six years.
Among the biggest deals of the day was a $10.6-billion offer from the Dolan family to take Cablevision Systems private.
The news about Cablevision, one of the fastest-growing U.S. cable TV companies, followed Tuesday's word of another major media maneuver -- a surprise $5-billion bid for Dow Jones by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
"What's driving the market is the same thing that's been driving the market for a while -- good global growth and the shrinking supply of equities, either from corporate buybacks or from companies going from public to private," said Bill Strazzullo, chief market strategist at Bell Curve Trading.
Shares of manufacturing companies that sell their products abroad posted sharp gains after government data showed bigger-than-expected increases in U.S. factory orders.
"Investors are becoming a little more comfortable with the state of the economy," said Christopher Orndorff, head of equity strategy at Payden & Rygel in Los Angeles.
The Dow rose 75.74 points, or 0.6%, to 13,211.88. Earlier in the session, the blue-chip index hit a fresh trading high of 13,256.33. The Dow has set 16 record closes this year and 39 since the beginning of October. Broader stock indicators also rose. The Standard & Poor's 500 index advanced 9.62 points, or 0.6%, to 1,495.92.
Wall Street has been eyeing the index, waiting for it to move back above 1,500; the S&P 500 hasn't closed above that level since September 2000.
The Nasdaq composite index rose 26.31, or 1%, to 2,557.84. The Russell 2,000 index of smaller-company stocks rose 12.21, or 1.5%, to 828.46.
Bond yields rose after the release of the factory order data but ended little changed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note held steady at 4.64%.
The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices fell.
Crude oil futures fell 72 cents to $63.68 a barrel in New York after weekly government figures showed larger-than-expected domestic supplies.
Overseas, indexes rose 0.7% in Japan, 1% in Britain, 0.6% in Germany and 0.5% in France.
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