The broad U.S. stock market rose in another light trading session on Monday due to rising shares in the tech sector and target firms linked to a flurry of mergers and acquisitions deals.

The S&P 500 Index rose 10.19 points, or 0.92 percent, to trade at 1,114.68 at 3:33pm. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 73.24 points, or 0.71 percent, to trade at 10,398.50.

The Nasdaq surged 1.44 percent as chipmakers got a boost from an industry report.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported Monday that global semiconductor sales were $22.5 billion for January. The figure is a 0.3 percent increase from last month and a 47.2 percent increase from last year.

SIA's president George Scalise said the sales number reflected improving business environment for the industry, adding that he sees strength across a range of demand drivers for semiconductors, including personal computers, cell phones, automobiles, and industrial applications.

Chip maker SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK), whose shares also benefited from a raised outlook and analyst upgrade, rose 12.25 percent.

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) rose 1.67 percent, Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) rose 3.73percent, and NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) rose 4.32 percent.

Other stocks in the tech sector also performed well; Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) rose 2.14 percent and Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) rose 2.30 percent.

Monday also saw the announcement of a flurry of M&A activities and the share of the target firms jumped.

RiskMetrics (NYSE:RISK) is up 13.10 percent, Millipore (NYSE:MIL) is up 11.06 percent, and OSI Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:OSIP) jumped 51.65 percent on news of an attempted hostile takeover of the company.

American International Group (NYSE:AIG) also announced that it will sell its $35.5 billion Asian life insurance business. Its shares are trading up 5.69 percent.

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