Mixed Open As Oil Prices Rise
The markets opened mixed with the Dow rising 25 points to 12,195 while Nasdaq fell 10 points to 2774. Mergers and acquisitions buoyed investor sentiment even as escalating violence in Libya sparked another surge in crude oil prices.
On the upside
Accuray (Nasdaq: ARAY) will pay approximately $277 million in cash and stock to acquire TomoTherapy (Nasdaq: TOMO).
Western Digital (NYSE: WDC) will purchase the hard disk drive business of Hitachi in a cash and stock deal valued at approximately $4.3 billion.
Fortune reported that Sprint (NYSE: S) may offer the Google smartphone with 4G and WiMAX.
On the downside
Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN) widened first quarter losses and forecast second quarter results below expectations.
Japan halted the use of Pfizer's (NYSE: PFE) Prevenar vaccine and Sanofi-Aventis' (NYSE: SNY) ActHIB vaccine in order to investigate four deaths of children up to two years of age who received vaccinations.Repligen (Nasdaq: RGEN) reported disappointing results from a Phase2b clinical trial of its bipolar depression treatment RG2417.In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 10 to 9 on the NYSE while decliners edged out advancers by more than 10 to 9 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks eased a point to 823.
