Stocks Little Changed in the Early Trading

U.S. stocks were little changed in the early trading on Monday with the main indexes hovering near previous closing levels. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lately was down 5.54 points, or 0.03%, to 18,185.57.The S&P 500 inched up 1.09 points, or 0.05%, to 2,117.19. The Nasdaq Composite gained 10.09 points, or 0.20%, to 5,013.64.

Oil and natural gas producer Noble Energy Inc said it would acquire Rosetta Resources Inc for about $2 billion in stock,highlighting a consolidation being driven by a steep fall in global oil prices. Rosetta shareholders will receive 0.542 NobleEnergy shares for each share held, or $26.62 per share, based on Noble’s closing price of $49.12 on Friday.

The British central bank said on Monday that it would maintain its benchmark interest rate at 0.5 percent, the level since March 2009, as the markets digest the implications of the Conservative Party’s election victory last week.

Shares of online retailer Zulily are soaring in premarket trading Monday, after Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba disclosed last week that it bought a stake in the company. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. disclosed last week that it owns 11.5 million Class A shares of Zulily, or about 9.3 percent of its outstanding shares.

Blackstone Group LP said Monday it would sell another 103.5 million shares of Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., as the hotel operator’s stock continues to rally.

Dish Network Corp. said Monday it lost 134,000 pay-TV subscribers in the first quarter of the year as the rate of cancellations increased, though the company’s profit doubled from a year earlier. At the end of the first quarter, Dish’s pay-TV service had 13.8 million subscribers, down from 14.1 million a year earlier. Gross pay-TV additions were 554,000, compared with 639,000 a year earlier.