In early after noon trade on Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had added 0.60 percent to 12,481.57. The Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 were also higher, with the Nasdaq gaining 0.63 percent to 2,428.80 and the S&P advancing 0.51 percent to 1,424.19. The Russell 2000 small-caps index was up 0.87 percent to 795.03. Trade volumes were low.

Ford was up 11 cents to $7.60 and US-traded shares in Toyota gained $2.03 to $133.64 on the news that top executives of the two automakers had met for talks.

Homebuilders were up on new data showing that new home sales were up more than had been anticipated in November. Hovnanian Enterprises added 44 cents to $33.68, while Toll Brothers was 66 cents higher to $32.35 and KB Home gained 79 cents to $51.58.

The retail sector was mixed on figures from the International Council of Shopping Centers that showed pre-Christmas holiday shopping was not as strong has had been hoped. Federated Department Stores was up 37 cents to $38.13, but Target only managed to hold steady at $57.09 and Wal-Mart fell 13 cents to $45.98.

Newspaper publisher McClatchy Co. dropped 43 cents to $42.64 after it announced that it will sell the Minneapolis Star Tribune to a private equity company in a deal worth $530 million.

New York equities markets were up at midday on Monday as bids talk took center stage. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.1 percent to 11,086.26, the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.3 percent to 2,269.64, and the S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent to 1,284.39.

The announcement that McClatchy, owner of a group of newspapers in several states, will buy Knight-Ridder for cash and stock worth $4.5 billion sent McClatchy down 1.9 percent to $52.05, while Knight-Ridder was up 0.3 percent to $65.20.

The news that Capital One Financial will buy North Fork Bancorp for $14.6 billion in cash and stock sent Capital One down 7.8 percent to $82.94 and North Fork up 15.4 percent to $29.23. Caylon Securities reiterated its “add” recommendation on Capital One, saying that even thought the deal was somewhat of a surprise, it was a good buy at an appropriate price.

Verizon was up 0.3 percent to $34.28 and Vodafone gained 4 percent to $22.39 on the news that Verizon had made a preliminary approach to buy Vodafone’s 45 percent stake their joint venture, Verizon Wireless.

Nasdaq Stock Market dropped 1.7 percent to $42.84 on a rejected bid for the London Stock Exchange on Friday. Meanwhile, the New York Stock Exchange gained 3.8 percent to $77.35. The Nasdaq bid was rejected by the LSE on the basis that it was too low, but the NYSE is expected to enter what could turn out to be a bidding war for the London exchange.

Elsewhere, Apple Computer was up 4 percent to $65.71 on an upgrade from “hold” to “buy” from Citigroup, and Boeing was up 0.7 percent to $75.29 when Barron’s said that the aircraft manufacturer is close to surpassing European company Airbus in the sales of commercial aircraft.