Stocks Opened Lower, Microsoft To Buy LinkedIn

U.S. stocks opened lower on Monday, as escalating worries that U.K. voters might choose to leave the European Union in a referendum set for next week. The Dow industrials lately slid 14.35 points, or 0.08%, to 17,850.99. The S&P 500 dropped 0.67point, or 0.03%%, to 2,095.40. The Nasdaq Composite shed 2.94 points, or 0.06%, to 4,891.61.

Microsoft Corp agreed to buy LinkedIn Corp for $26.2 billion in its biggest-ever deal, combining the software giant’s fast-growing cloud services business with the world’s largest online network for professionals.The offer of $196 per share represents a premium of 49.5 percent to LinkedIn’s Friday closing price.

Symantec Corp. plans to buy Blue Coat Systems Inc. in a $4.65 billion deal that will give the computer-security company a new portfolio of cyberdefense technologies along with a new chief executive.

Drugstore chain Walgreens said on Sunday it would end its relationship with Theranos, in another blow for the blood-testing company that was once lauded for its innovative approach but has increasingly come under scrutiny.

OPEC forecast that the world oil market will be more balanced in the second half of 2016 as outages in Nigeria and Canada help to speed up the erosion of a supply glut.

Oil prices kicked off the week in the red after U.S. drilling data showed another increase. Brent briefly fell below $50 a barrel for the first time in a week. It was recently down 0.7% to $50.18 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate futures were trading down 1% at $48.59 a barrel.