Gere's character Miller has his own problems to deal with in Arbitrage: a mistress he's trying to keep secret from his wife, a hole in his company's balance sheet he's trying to hide from his investors, and a potential buy-out that looks on the verge of collapsing.

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In merger arbitrage, the narrower the spread between trading price and offer price, the more optimistic traders are that a deal is going through.

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