NYSE shares surge 31% on deal to sell company

Shares of NYSE Euronext surged 31% in early trading after the operator of the New York Stock Exchange announced a deal sell itself to IntercontinentalExchange Inc.

NYSE Euronext shares gained $7.51, or 31%, to $31.56 shortly after the opening bell on Wall Street.

NYSE Euronext announced early Thursday that it would sell itself to the ICE exchange, a 12-year-old commodities and futures trading venue based in Atlanta, in a stock-and-cash deal worth $8.2 billion. The deal is subject to approval by U.S. and European regulators and both companies’ shareholders.

Quiz: How much do you know about the ‘fiscal cliff’?

ICE’s shares gained $1.30, or 1%, to $129.61 a share in early trading.

Major U.S. stock indexes, meanwhile, were edging lower.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 17 points, or 0.1%, to 13,235. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 2 points, or 0.1%, to 1,434. The Nasdaq was off 7 points, or 0.2%, to 3,037.

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