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Published March 24, 2008 at 1:34 PM
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 Buying Bear Stearns Cos. [BSC] for a mere $2 per share seemed to be too good to be true. And many of Bear shareholders such as billionaire shareholder Joseph Lewis vociferously said so. To deter any possibility of losing the deal, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. upped its bid for Bear to $10 per share, sending the stock up 114% and causing a positive domino effect on the overall markets. The Dow jumped 221.89, or 1.79% to 12,582.35, and the Nasdaq rose 65.86, or 2.92% to 2,323.97 in Monday midday trading.
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- J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon was willing to up the ante for Bear, offering $10 per share, or 0.21753 of a share for the investment bank. The deal also calls for J.P. Morgan [JPM] to now guarantee the first $1 billion of Bear's illiquid assets while the Federal Reserve will be responsible for the remaining $29 billion. The offer sent Bear to the roof, up 6.77, or 114%, to $12.73.
- Bank of America Corp. [BAC], which is still going through the process of acquiring Countrwide Finacial Corp., rose around 3% on the Bear deal. BofA investors are also digesting Punk Ziegel's analyst's report of pared full-year earnings estimates from 2008 through 2010, while forecasting that BofA loan-loss provision may reach $6.5 billion in the current quarter.
- Special acquisition company Marathon Acquisition Corp. [MAQ.U] rose slightly on its purchase of a majority stake in London-based Global Ship Lease Inc. for about $1 billion.
- Lastly, Synopsys Inc. [SNPS] moved up 4% on its purchase of design and verification software for makers of chips, Synplicity Inc., for $188 million in cash.
- Gerald Magpily
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