Markets Mixed As Investors Digest Unexpected Rate Hike In China

The markets traded mixed during the midday with the Dow slipping 15 points to 11,558 while Nasdaq added 3 points to 2669 as investors digested an unexpected interest rate hike by the Bank of China.

On the upside

A-Power Energy Generation (Nasdaq: APWR) will engineer, procure and construct a coal-based power plant for the Inner Mongolia Huolinhe Coal Trade Group.

Barron's said that Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) is undervalued.

Motley Fool listed Quantum (NYSE: QTM) as one of the top ten performing stocks in computers and peripherals.

On the downside

DryShips (Nasdaq: DRYS) will pay approximately $770 million for a dozen high-specification newbuilding oil tankers .

A Bloomberg article suggested that Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) attempts to enter the tablet computing space will fail.

Barron's said that gross margins will continue to decline for Micron Technology (NYSE: MU).

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 10 to 9 on the NYSE and by 9 to 7 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks rose 2 points to 791.