By CNNMoney.com

Stocks ended little changed Monday, although the Nasdaq managed to close at an 18-month high, as investors weighed corporate deals, a stronger dollar and weaker commodity prices ahead of key economic news due later this week.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 14 points, or 0.1%. The S&P 500 index was little changed. Both ended the previous session at their highest levels since Jan. 20.

The Nasdaq composite added 6 points, or 0.3%, ending at its highest point since Sept. 2, 2008.

Stocks rallied Friday after a government report showed the economy lost fewer jobs in February than economists had expected.

But stocks drifted Monday as investors looked to a host of economic news due later in the week, including reports on state-by-state unemployment Wednesday, weekly jobless claims Thursday and retail sales Friday.

Deal news: MetLife  agreed to buy troubled insurer AIG’s American Life Insurance unit, known as Alico, in a $15.5 billion cash-and-stock deal. The deal was a positive, but not a surprise, as MetLife had confirmed last month that it was in talks with AIG.

It was AIG’s second major sale in a week as the government-owned company looks to pay back over $100 billion in bailout money it took during the financial crisis.

MetLife will pay $6.8 billion in cash, with the remainder in company stock. The deal leaves AIG as Met’s second-biggest shareholder, with a stake of over 20% in the company. Met shares gained 5% and AIG shares gained 3.6%.

In other deal news, Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina have made a bid to buy Australia’s Arrow Energy for $3 billion in cash and stock. Royal Dutch already owns a 10% stake in Arrow.

Deal news tends to support stock gains in general, as it is seen as a sign of corporate confidence.

Company news: McDonald’s said February same-store sales rose 4.8%, as strength in overseas markets offset weakness in the United States. Same-store sales is a retail metric that refers to sales at stores open a year or more. Shares of the Dow component rose 2.3%.

Dubious anniversary: Tuesday brings the one-year anniversary of what many consider to be the bear-market low. On that day, the Dow and S&P 500 closed at 12-year lows and the Nasdaq closed at 6-year lows.

Between March 9 and the 2010 rally high hit on Jan. 19, the S&P 500 gained 70%, the Dow gained 64% and the Nasdaq gained 44%.

World Markets: In overseas trading, European markets slipped and Asian markets rallied.

The dollar and commodities: The dollar gained versus the euro and the yen.

U.S. light crude oil for April delivery rose 37 cents to settle at $81.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

COMEX gold for May delivery fell $10.90 to settle at $1,124.60 per ounce.

Bonds: Treasury prices tumbled, raising the yield on the 10-year note to 3.71% from 3.68% late Friday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

Job numbers from last month were released today and they were substantially better than expected. Employers cut a net of 36,000 jobs compared to predictions that they’d cut 50,000. Moreover, the unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent, a stat that will likely help consumer confidence slowly rise. These numbers come at a critical time as they keep the newfound market rally going. All three major indexes are currently trading up and looking to make this week one of the best in recent memory. More to come later today.

The Haiti and Chile earthquakes have had terrible repercussions in that hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions upon millions in property has been destroyed. Our hearts go out to all those affected by these earthquakes.  But to just understand the tragedy does no good if one does not address it.

The only way to address issues like this is to first fight the poverty in third world nations.  The 7.0 earthquake that hit Japan just days ago was not much better than the one that hit Haiti however the death toll was minuscule in comparison.  The reason? Poverty.  The building structures in Haiti and Chile are not earthquake resistible because the nation is having trouble even building enough houses for everyone (let alone fixing them to resist earthquakes).  If this poverty were properly addressed, then nations like Chile could then revise their priorities but until poverty is addressed and until the third world governments have enough money to pay for housing and food, they cannot pay to rebuild series of houses.  It is thus that in any effort to fight the impact of natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes inherently MUST begin with efforts to fight poverty.

While the Senate jobs bill has been panned for being so scaled back when compared to the house jobs bill, it will still likely save a good number of jobs.  The bill can essentially be broken into four main subsections:

1) Exempting employers from a SS tax if they hire unemployed workers 2) Funding highway and transit programs, essentially more short term infrastructure development 3) Tax cuts for businesses spending on capital purchases and 4) Help for states to fund more infrastructure programs.

The 15 billion dollar bill is clearly more decentralized than the 114 billion dollar house bill, but according to Reid it will save up to 1 million jobs.  We believe that these estimates are over-inflated and the number is closer to 750,000 over the next 4-5 months.  This sounds somewhat minuscule but if you look at the massive impact stimulus spending had on our employment picture, you’d recognize that this is quite good.   Read the rest of this entry »