NEW YORK: The stock market notched another record close Monday.
Food distributor Sysco rose the most in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index after the company announced an agreement to buy rival US Foods in an $8.2 billion deal. Sysco’s stock jumped $3.31, or 9.7 percent, to $37.62.
The S&P 500 index climbed 3.28 points, or 0.2 percent, to 1,808.37. That put the index a point above its previous record close of 1,807.23 set November 27.
Other indexes also made small gains. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 5.33 points, less than 0.1 percent, to 16,025.53. The Nasdaq composite increased 6.23 points, or 0.2 percent, to 4,068.75.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government ended up losing $10.5 billion on the General Motors bailout, but it says the alternative would have been far worse.
The Treasury Department sold its final shares of the Detroit auto giant on Monday, recovering $39 billion of the $49.5 billion it spent to save the dying automaker at the height of the financial crisis five years ago.
Without the bailout, the country would have lost more than 1 million jobs, and the economy could have slipped from recession into a depression, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said on a conference call with reporters.