Home Sales Rise As Foreclosures Climb, Markets Open Mixed

Sales of previously occupied homes climbed in August as foreclosures rose. It was a mixed open for the markets with the Dow losing 23 points to 11,384 while Nasdaq added 3 points to 2594.

On the upside

Orexigen Therapeutics (Nasdaq: OREX) will begin a two year clinical trial to study the safety of its obesity treatment Contrave next year.

Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) reported higher first quarter earnings and revenue that topped analyst expectations and forecast current quarter earnings ahead of estimates.

Bargain hunters lifted shares of Molycorp (NYSE: MCP) whose stock price dropped yesterday after a downgrade.

On the downside

Shares of railroad transportation services firm CSX (NYSE: CSX), dropped after a Senate subcommittee approved a budget that eliminated funding for the high speed rail program. 

Freeport McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) blamed a week long strike at its Indonesian mine for hurting copper and gold production.

Walter Energy (NYSE: WLT) warned that a plant shutdown will hurt sales and output.

In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of nearly 9 to 7 on the NYSE while advancers edged out decliners by nearly 5 to 3 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks added a point to 690.