Closing bell: M&A gives market a boost; Coffee also provides stimulus (C, BAC, ACS, DDRX & GMCR)

Traders had on their rally caps today, and the DJIA moved as high as 9,823 as it renewed its ascent toward 10,000. The index moved back down a bit at the end of the day as traders got lazy during a session in which most of the news came before the bell.

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) and Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) both announced deals today that pumped some air into the M&A business. Financial shares are mostly moving higher because increased M&A activity generally means more fees for financial services companies. Trading volume was light, mostly due to the Yom Kippur holiday today.

Today's numbers:

Dow 9,789.44 +124.25 (1.29%)
S&P 500 1,062.88 +18.50 (1.77%)
Nasdaq 2,130.74 +39.82 (1.90%)

Citigroup (NYSE:C) was up about 4% to $4.55, and was the market's volume leader with more than 180 million shares traded. Average daily volume was more than 700 million shares, so today was definitely a light trading day.

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) was up more than 3%, to $17.13 even as bank officials fight a shareholder lawsuit related to its takeover of Merrill Lynch.

Xerox share's have dropped nearly 20% to $7.32 on its proposed acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services (NYSE: ACS) for $6.4 billion. Investors seem to be thinking that Xerox is paying too much for the business-outsourcing company. If the deal goes through, Xerox will have to change from a being a hardware company to being primarily a software and services company. That can be done, as International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) have shown, but Xerox might find the shift to be more difficult than it thinks.

On the upside, Green Mountain Coffe Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) and Diedrich Coffee Inc. (NASDAQ: DDRX) saw heavy volume and rising share prices today. Green Mountain was up more than 6% to $73.39 on nearly double its normal volume, and Diedrich was up nearly 5.9% to $20.15 on volume likely to surpass its daily average.

And as the market climbed, the Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares ETF (NYSE:FAZ) fell by 6.89%, to $20.72. The fund's 52-week low is $19.08, meaning a new low could be in sight if the market rally continues this week.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

Tags: ABT, ACS, BAC, C, DDRX, GMCR, HPQ, IBM, XRX