The markets opened higher as investors focused on corporate merger news and a possible bail-out of the bond insurance sector. The Dow rose 48 points to 12,429 while Nasdaq climbed 6 points to 2310.
On the upside
Observers were hopeful that bond insurer Ambac Financial
Group (NYSE: ABK) may get a boost from a consortium of banks and investors.
Genentech (NYSE: DNA) received an FDA greenlight to accelerate approval for its breast cancer drug treatment.
On the downside
Shares of Syntel (Nasdaq: SYNT) fell after the information technology provider posted higher revenues and earnings, but warned of challening economic conditions.An analyst downgraded Smith Micro Software (Nasdaq: SMSI) which develops and markets wireless communications software.
Oppenheimer analysts lowered their opinion on the financial services sector weighing down shares of Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) and Citigroup (NYSE: C).
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin
of nearly 3 to 2 on both the NYSE and Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap
stocks rose 5 points to 701.
