Existing Home Sales Drop, Markets Open Lower

A drop in June sales of previously owned homes weighed the markets down to a lower open with the Dow slipping 20 points to 12,567. Nasdaq lost 9 points to 2817.

On the upside

Citadel, E*Trade's (Nasdaq: ETFC) largest shareholder with a 9.8% stake in the online brokerage, asked E*Trade to explore strategic alternatives including the option of selling the company.

Disinfectant company Ecolab (NYSE: ECL) will pay approximately $5.4 billion to acquire water treatment company Nalco Holding (NYSE: NLC).

Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) impressed with third quarter earnings that more than doubled to surpass analyst expectations by a wide margin as revenue surged.

On the downside

While second quarter earnings rose for Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), revenue dropped and the company forecast current quarter revenue below expectations.

Riverbed Technology (Nasdaq: RVBD) reported sharply higher second quarter earnings but revenue missed estimates and the company forecast third quarter earnings below expectations.

Dynavax (Nasdaq: DVAX) reported a second quarter loss.

In the broad market, advancing issues barely edged out decliners by a slim margin on the NYSE while decliners outpaced advancers by more than 5 to 3 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks fell 4 points to 830.