LONDON (ShareCast) - US stocks headed higher this morning, buoyed by financials and mining stocks.

Financials took heart from news that Washington Mutual is in negotiations with a group led by private-equity firm TFG that could lead to the consortium pumping $5bn into the savings and loan giant, which recently announced more than $3bn of write-downs.

Miners, meanwhile, tracked metal prices higher.

Across the markets, the Dow Jones industrial average is up 94 points at 12,703 and the S&P 500 is up 12 at 1,382. The NASDAQ Composite is 13 points to the good at 1,382.

Internet portal Yahoo! declined after reiterating its rejection of Microsoft’s cash plus shares offer. Microsoft has threatened to launch a hostile offer at a lower price if Yahoo! does not voluntarily agree to its merger proposal by 26 April. Yahoo! maintains that the Microsoft terms do not place a fair value on Yahoo!

Microsoft’s share price tended firmer after the rebuff.

Elsewhere in the tech sector Apple shares were wanted after Thomas Weisel Partners raised the consumer electronics darling to “overweight” from “market weight”.

With crude oil prices continuing to rise oil companies Exxon Mobil and Chevron had a good morning.

Both sets of shareholders seemed to be happy with the deal that saw Discover Financial Services take Diners Club International off Citigroup’s hands for $165m, as the share price of both companies moved up.

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