The S&P 500 barely budged from where it began the holiday shortened week despite a slew of macroeconomic events, highlighted at home by the lackluster jobs report for May and abroad by the Japanese delay in its sales tax hike as well as meetings of the ECB and OPEC.

Macro News:

In the U.S., economists and investors largely agreed that the government's estimate the U.S. economy added only 38,000 new jobs last month just about eliminates any chance that the Fed will hike rates when they meet later this month.

Other data released this week showed personal income rose 0.4% in April, as expected, while consumer spending grew 1.0%, which was better than 0.7% increase forecast. The Chicago PMI dipped 1.1 points in May to 49.3, versus expectations for a reading of 50.5. The Conference Board's consumer confidence index for May dropped to 92.6, versus expectations for it to have risen to a 96.1 from its prior level of 94.2.

Markit's final manufacturing purchasing managers index reading for May came in at 50.7, better than the flash reading of 50.5, but slightly weaker than April's 50.8 reading. ISM's manufacturing index rose to 51.3, which was a point better than the 50.3 consensus forecast. Construction spending unexpectedly dropped 1.8% in April, versus expectations for it to have risen 0.6%. In its latest Beige Book, the Federal Reserve said that the information received from the 12 Fed districts mostly described "modest" economic growth.

In Europe, the European Central Bank, as expected, kept the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility unchanged. The ECB also announced that the Eurosystem will start making purchases under its corporate sector purchase program on June 8.

The overall Eurozone PMI for May came in at 51.5, also flat with April and in-line with the consensus projection. Eurozone unemployment was stable at 10.2% in April, matching the consensus expectation. The consumer price index for May fell 0.1% and the core CPI rose 0.8%, both of which met expectations. Confidence in the euro-area increased to a four-month high, according to an index of business and consumer sentiment released by the European Commission.

In Asia, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe confirmed expectations this week when he delayed the upcoming sales tax hike. China's official manufacturing PMI came in at 50.1 in May, flat with April's reading and about in-line with expectations. 

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, at its meeting today in Vienna, decided to make no change in their levels of oil production. Additionally, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in its semiannual economic outlook, lowered its growth forecast for the combined economy of the 34 OECD countries to 1.8% this year and 2.1% in 2017 from 2.2% and 2.3%, respectively, it had foreseen in November.

Company News:

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn disclosed that he recently took a "large" position in Allergan (AGN), saying he is "very supportive" of CEO Brent Saunders. In response, the drugmaker said it has "no reason to believe that this investment was made for the purposes of influencing the actions of management or control of the company"

Japan's SoftBank (SFTBF) announced that it has approved a series of capital raising transactions which involve monetizing its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (BABA). Late in the week, SoftBank announced that the initial purchasers of its previously announced offering of Mandatory Exchangeable Trust Securities which are exchangeable into ADSs of Alibaba have exercised in full their option to purchase the securities. With the exercise of the option to purchase additional securities, the total size of the offering is $6.6B. In addition to the offering, SoftBank is raising an additional $3.4B in capital from the sale of ordinary shares of Alibaba, giving the transactions a total size of $10B. 

Oracle (ORCL) slid after a former employee claimed in a "whistleblower" lawsuit that she was terminated in retaliation for complaining about improper accounting practices in the company's cloud services business. In response, Oracle said that it is confident that all its cloud accounting is "proper and correct" and that it intends to countersue for malicious prosecution. Oracle added that the employee filing the suit did not work in the accounting group and was terminated for poor performance.

Shares of Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT) dropped sharply after the FDA announced new procedures for doctors to request "compassionate use" for unapproved drugs, which led to speculation over the path forward for the company's Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug, still under review by the agency. Some analysts made the case that the new FDA procedures for expanded access for unapproved drugs could enable broader access to eteplirsen without forcing the agency to grant an approval at this time..

On the M&A front, Salesforce (CRM) announced a definitive agreement to acquire Demandware (DWRE), provider of enterprise cloud commerce solutions, for $75.00 in cash per share in a transaction worth approximately $2.8B.

Great Plains Energy (GXP) agreed to acquire Westar Energy (WR) in a combined cash and stock transaction with an enterprise value of approximately $12.2B, including total equity value of approximately $8.6B.

Celator Pharmaceuticals (CPXX) agreed to be acquired by Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ) for $30.25 per share in cash, or approximately $1.5B. Also, Marketo (MKTO) agreed to be acquired by Vista Equity Partners for a total value of approximately $1.79B, or $35.25 in cash per share, while SciQuest (SQI) announced it will be bought by affiliates of Accel-KKR for $17.75 per share in cash, representing a total equity value of approximately $509M...

Michael Kors (KORS) gained a bit over 6.5% on Wednesday after posting better-than-expected earnings and revenue, authorizing a new $1B repurchase plan, and acquiring its Greater China licensee. Under Armour (UA) fell nearly 4% the same day after cutting its financial outlook to reflect the impact of Sport Authority's bankruptcy.

On Friday, Ambarella (AMBA) and Broadcom (AVGO) gained about 9% and 5%, respectively, after reporting quarterly earnings.

DeVry (DV) shares dropped after the for-profit education company announced a change at CFO about a week after announcing a change at CEO as well.

Indexes 

The Dow lost about 0.35% to close at 17,807.06; the S&P 500 rose a fraction to close at 2,099.13; the Nasdaq advanced about 0.2% to close at 4,942.52.