Markets Flat At Midday

The markets traded near the flatline during the midday with the Dow adding 3 points to 8472 while Nasdaq lost 5 points to 1520 as crude oil prices rebounded.

On the upside

Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) reported that the 2008 holiday shopping season was the best for the online retailer with over 6.3 million items ordered on its peak day.

John Dvorak of MarketWatch spotlighted Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) as a 10-bagger stock, one whose stock price is expected to surge by a factor of ten over a two year period.

Sunrise Senior Living (NYSE: SRZ) entered a standstill agreement with two of its subsidiaries and its lender.

On the downside

Shares of Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS) fell after SpendingPulse reported a sharp 27% drop in sales of electronics and appliances.

Holiday retail sales fell for the first time in approximately forty years to weigh down shares of Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT).

Emageon (Nasdaq: EMAG) announced that Stanford International Bank will not provide the necessary funds to complete Health Systems' acquisition of Emageon.

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 5 to 4 on the NYSE while decliners outpaced advancers by nearly 9 to 7 on Nasdaq.  The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks eased a fraction to 470.