Market Minute: Delta Shares Set to Soar; IBM Retires Retiree Health Care

Shares of Delta could take off, and major changes are coming to retirement benefit programs at three of the nation's biggest companies. Those stories and more are what's in Monday's Market Minute.

The Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI) snapped a streak of four straight weekly losses, adding nearly 1 percent last week. The Standard & Poor's 500 index (^GPSC) gained more than 1 percent and the Nasdaq composite index (^IXIC) jumped more than 2 percent.

Delta Air Lines (DAL) is being added to the S&P 500. That usually gives a boost to the stock, as mutual funds that track the index have to buy it.

IBM (IBM) is moving 110,000 retirees who are eligible for Medicare off of the company's health plan. Instead, Big Blue will pay them to buy policies from health-insurance exchanges, similar to those set up under Obamacare. IBM says the current, traditional structure would require big premium increases.

Reuters reports that Time Warner (TWX) plans to make a similar move.

And the Labor Department has given AT&T (T) tentative approval to fund its pension plan with nearly $10 billion of preferred stock. That exceeds the federal limit on how much company stock can go into these plans, but it would make the plan nearly fully funded -- something many big companies can only dream about.

Procter & Gamble (PG) is raising the price of its Pampers and Luv diaper brands. It will reduce the number of diapers in each package, effectively increasing the price by 5 to 7 percent.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) is reportedly looking to sell its Ortho Diagnostics unit. News reports say the blood testing division could be worth around $5 billion. Abbott Labs (ABT), Danaher (DHR) and two European companies -- Roche Holdings and Siemens -- are the major players in the industry, and may be interesting in bidding.

And after years of negotiations, Apple (AAPL) has reportedly worked out a deal for China Mobile to carry the iPhone, including the low-cost model that Apple is expected to introduce this week. China Mobile has 700 million subscribers.

-Produced by Drew Trachtenberg.

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