Opening Bell Report

The markets opened lower as oil prices edged higher while investors remained anxious about the financial services sector.  The Dow lost 95 points to 11,532 while Nasdaq dropped 25 points to 2389.

On the upside

LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) announced that its China-based wafer plant reached a production milestone while boosting its forecast for 2009.

An analyst upgraded China Sunergy (Nasdaq: CSUN) as the outlook for solar cell demand improved.

General Motors (NYSE: GM) was the only Dow component whose shares were on the upside this morning.  Investors hoped that the government would extend loans to the auto industry to ride out the downturn.

On the downside

Canadian oil and natural gas driller Precision Drilling Trust (NYSE: PDS) offered $2.9 billion to buy Houston-based gas driller Grey Wolf (NYSE: GW), but only $1.12 billion will be in cash.

Broadcom (Nasdaq: BRCM) offered $192 million to acquire a unit from Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) that makes chips for digital TV.

Shares of Healthways (Nasdaq: HWAY) tumbled after the disease-management program administrator lowered its forecast due to contract losses.

In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of nearly 2 to 1 on the NYSE and by more than 2 to 1 on Nasdaq.  The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks lost 5 points to 731.