Surging Crude Oil Prices Send Markets Tumbling
Crude oil prices continued surging to send the markets tumbling during the midday with the Dow plunging 139 points to 12,118. Nasdaq dropped 21 points to 2776.
On the upside
JDS Uniphase (Nasdaq: JDSU) will present its optical communications and communications test and measurement portfolio solutions at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference/National Fiber Optics Engineers Conference in Los Angeles next week.
Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A) will present at the Media Briefing at Pittcon on March 14, 2011 and at the Barclays Capital 2011 Global Healthcare Conference on March 16, 2011.
Cadence Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: CADX) widened fourth quarter losses but the company reported that its pain treatment Ofirmev is on 203 hospital formularies.
On the downside
Moody's placed Central European Distribution (Nasdaq: CEDC) on review for a possible downgrade citing significant deterioration in operating performance.
William Blair & Co. downgraded Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MWW) citing the tepid job market and competition from other online employment sites.The Food and Drug Administration warned that use the drug topiramate during pregnancy may increase the incidence of babies born with cleft lip and cleft palate. Topiramate is a component of Vivus' (Nasdaq: VVUS) diet drug Qnexa.In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers 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 dropped 8 points to 820.
