Wall Street ends higher on Buffett deal and oil price

(Close): US stocks made a strong start to the week, with sentiment boosted by Warren Buffett's deal to buy engineer Precision Castparts and a rise in oil and gas shares.

The Dow Jones rose 241.79 points, or 1.39%, to 17,615.17, while the S&P 500 added 26.61 (1.28%) to 2,104.18 points.

The Nasdaq ended 58.25 points better - 1.16% - at 5,101.8.

Hopes that Greece is moving closer to a deal with its creditors also gave US markets a lift.

Precision Castparts closed up 19.1% after Mr Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway announced its $37.2bn takeover.

"We've had a whole lot of M&A throughout the year, and that's positive because it means businesses are upbeat on the prospects for the economy," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital.

A rise in crude oil prices lifted Chevron 2.6%, while oil-services giant Halliburton rose 4.7%.

Chinese internet firm Alibaba rose 2.1% on news it will pay 28.3bn yuan ($4.6bn) for a near-20% stake in consumer electronics retailer Suning.

Microblogging company Twitter jumped 9.1% as the National Football League announced a deal to deliver official content from the American football league on the Twitter platform. The stock was also lifted by news that founder Jack Dorsey bought about $875,000 worth of Twitter stock.

And there was better news for Apple, whose shares have been in retreat for almost three weeks. Apple shares advanced 3.6%.

Only one Dow stock finished lower, Coca-Cola, which lost 0.22%.