Falling Mortgage Rates Lift Markets To Higher Close

Mortgage rates slipped to a 50-year low to boost the markets to a higher close with the Dow soaring 120 points to 10,138. Nasdaq climbed 15 points to 2175.

On the upside

Tesla Motors (Nasdaq: TSLA) hired former retail and real estate executive of Apple, Gap and Microsoft George Blankenship to spearhead its retail strategy.

BB&T Capital Markets upgraded Westlake Chemical (NYSE: WLK).

JA Solar Holdings (Nasdaq: JASO) will supply Solar-Fabrik with 70 megawatts of solar power.

On the downside

June same store sales for teen apparel retailer The Buckle (NYSE: BKE) tumbled 7.3%.

Aeropostale (NYSE: ARO) reported a better than expected 8% increase in same store sales but the stock price fell.

Longbow Research analyst Steve Koenig downgraded Epicor Software (Nasdaq: EPIC) citing a weak market.

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 3 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 5 to 2 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks climbed 8 points to 620.