Honda, Eli Lilly Were Among the Winners on Wall Street

Stocks closed higher on Wall Street at the start of a holiday-shortened week.

• The S&P 500 rose 43.22 points, or 0.7%, to 5,974.07.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 66.69 points, or 0.2%, to 42,906.95.
• The Nasdaq composite rose 192.29 points, or 1%, to 19,764.89.

Honda's US-listed shares rose sharply after the company said it was in talks about a combination with Nissan in a deal that could also include Mitsubishi Motors, the AP reports. US-listed shares in Honda jumped 12.7%, while Nissan ended flat.

Eli Lilly rose 3.6% after announcing that regulators approved Zepbound as the first and only prescription medicine for adults with sleep apnea. Gains in technology and communications stocks helped outweigh losses in consumer goods companies and elsewhere in the market. Semiconductor giant Nvidia, whose enormous valuation gives it an outsize influence on indexes, rose 3.7%. Broadcom climbed 5.5% to also help support the broader market. Walmart fell 2% and PepsiCo slid 1%. Department store Nordstrom fell 1.5% after it agreed to be taken private by Nordstrom family members and a Mexican retail group in a $6.25 billion deal.

The Conference Board said that consumer confidence slipped in December. Its consumer confidence index fell back to 104.7 from 112.8 in November. Wall Street was expecting a reading of 113.8. Wall Street has several other economic reports to look forward to this week. On Tuesday, the US will release its November report on sales of newly constructed homes. A weekly update on unemployment benefits is expected on Thursday. Markets in the US will close at 1pm Eastern on Tuesday for Christmas Eve and will remain closed on Wednesday for Christmas. (More stock market stories.)