Corporate Consolidations Spark Buying Trend

On the upside 

Skymark Research initiated coverage of Luna Innovations (Nasdaq: LUNA).

Compton Petroleum (NYSE: CMZ) will sell various overriding royalties in order to reduce its debt.

Private equity firm American Securities will acquire GenTek (Nasdaq: GETI) in a deal valued at approximately $673 million.

Barclays analyst Jeff Kvaal upgraded Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO).

On the downside

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: KERX) will sell 8 million common shares through a registered direct offering.

Celsion (Nasdaq: CLSN) will raise $7.1 million through the sale of up to 3 million shares.

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 4 to 1 on the NYSE and by a margin of more than 3 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks leaped 15 points to 614.