Surge In New Home Sales Boost Markets At Midday
A greater than expected surge in new home sales boosted the markets during the midday with the Dow gaining 73 points to 10,116. Nasdaq climbed 25 points to 2236.
On the upside
The Food and Drug Administration will review MELA Sciences' (Nasdaq: MELA) pre-market application for its melanoma detection tool MelaFind.
Central Jersey Bancorp (Nasdaq: CJBK) and Kearny Financial (Nasdaq: KRNY) will merge in a deal valued at approximately $72.3 million.
J.P. Morgan Chase upgraded US Airways Group (NYSE: LCC).
On the downside
Investors locked in profits on Sprint (NYSE: S), whose shares surged recently.Morgan Joseph analyst Shiv Kapoor said that long term growth for Gilead (Nasdaq: GILD) is poor citing a number of drug patents that are set to expire in seven to eight years.
Psagot analyst Limor Gruber upgraded Teva Pharmaceutical (NYSE: TEVA) and raised her price target for the generic drug maker but the stock price fell.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 5 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 4 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks soared 12 points to 652.
