Higher Close As Consumer Spending Climbs
A sharp gain in December consumer spending lifted the markets to a higher close with the Dow climbing 68 points to 11,891. Nasdaq gained 13 point to 2700.
On the upside
AsiaInfo-Linkage (Nasdaq: ASIA) will repurchase up to $60 million worth of common shares.
Sky-mobi (Nasdaq: MOBI) entered a strategic partnership with Chinese Internet portal Tencent to promote Tencent's QQ Mobile Browser on Sky-mobi's Maopao application store.
Orexigen Therapeutics (Nasdaq: OREX) stock climbed ahead of the Food and Drug Administration's decision on the company's obesity treatment Contrave.
On the downside
Citron Research questioned the growth of China MediaExpress (Nasdaq: CCME).
Chile's antitrust court suspended the merger between Brazilian airliner TAM (NYSE: TAM) and Chilean LAN Airlines.UBS Securities analyst Amitabh Passi initiated coverage of Motorola Mobility (NYSE: MMI) with a Hold rating saying that due to the competitive nature of the wireless market, the future of Motorola Mobility is uncertain.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 5 to 2 on the NYSE and by 7 to 5 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks gained 5 points 781.
