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Kimberly-Clark ( KMB ) to acquire Kenvue ( KVUE ) for more than $40 billion

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US manufacturing activity contracts in October

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Fed officials offer conflicting viewpoints regarding a

December

rate cut

(Updates to U.S. close)

By Stephen Culp

NEW YORK, Nov 3 - The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed

higher on Monday, with artificial intelligence-related deals

driving much of the gains even as the Federal Reserve's

near-term monetary policy grew increasingly foggy due to

scarcity of official U.S. economic data.

Tech and tech-related firms helped boost the Nasdaq to the

biggest gain, while healthcare companies UnitedHealth Group

UNH.N and Merck MRK.N held the Dow in negative territory.

Among the major drivers to the upside, Amazon.com ( AMZN )

jumped after the company announced it struck a $38 billion deal

with OpenAI to allow the ChatGPT maker to run and scale its

artificial intelligence workloads on Amazon Web Services' cloud

infrastructure.

Nvidia ( NVDA ) shares gained after U.S. President Donald Trump

said the AI chipmaker's most advanced microchips will be

reserved for U.S. companies and kept out of China and other

countries.

Over the weekend, the White House released details about the

agreement reached by U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese

President Xi Jinping to de-escalate the trade war between the

world's two biggest economies.

"The Amazon ( AMZN ) deal and other M&A news have boosted the market,

and then you know we came into the week after getting marginally

positive news over the weekend, both about the China trade

situation and some dovish Fedspeak," said Ross Mayfield,

investment strategy analyst at Baird in Louisville, Kentucky.

"(But) it's definitively a market led by big tech semiconductors

and it has been for almost this entire bull market."

Kimberly-Clark ( KMB ) shares slid after it was revealed the

consumer goods company will buy Tylenol maker Kenvue ( KVUE )

for more than $40 billion.

While official economic data remains scarce amid the ongoing

government shutdown, the Institute for Supply Management and S&P

Global released their purchasing managers' indexes, which showed

U.S. factories continue to grapple with uncertainty stemming

from Trump's tariff policies.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments pertaining

to the legality of Trump's tariffs on Wednesday.

In the wake of last week's expected interest rate cut, the

Fed's next move has become increasingly unclear given the lack

of economic indicators due to the ongoing government shutdown.

Payrolls processor ADP's National Employment index, expected on

Wednesday, could shed light on the state of the U.S. labor

market.

Fed officials offered conflicting viewpoints, with Fed Governor

Stephen Miran making the case for additional rate cuts, but

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said he was leery of

additional cuts while inflation remains well above the central

bank's 2% annual target.

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500

gained 12.52 points, or 0.18%, to end at 6,852.72 points,

while the Nasdaq Composite gained 109.77 points, or

0.46%, to 23,834.72. The Dow Jones Industrial Average

fell 218.88 points, or 0.46%, to 47,343.99.

Third-quarter earnings season is well underway, with well

over 300 of the companies in the S&P 500 having reported. Of

those, 83% have beaten analysts' estimates, according to the

most recent LSEG data.