U.S. President Donald Trump's re-election prompted a run-up in the broad stock market that has since receded. The same has happened in a number of tiny companies linked to the president's two eldest sons.

Honeywell said on Thursday it will split into three independently listed companies, breaking up one of America's last standing conglomerates just months after activist investor Elliott Management took a $5 billion stake in the industrial giant.

New York police were asking the public for help in their search for the masked assailant.

U.S. carriers Southwest Airlines and American Airlines lifted their fourth-quarter forecasts on Thursday, betting on buoyant domestic travel demand during the holiday season and improved pricing.

Diversified conglomerates were long a fixture of the U.S. stock market landscape, with the Dow industrials bolstered by big names such as 3M, General Electric, United Technologies and others. But many of those companies have since broken apart, and shares of their spinoffs have surged.