Mixed Open As Apple's Earnings Temper Drop In Pending Home Sales

The markets opened mixed with the Dow dropping 79 points to 12,595 as pending home sales fell. Apple's impressive earnings lifted Nasdaq 4 points to 2791.

On the upside

Roche announced a $5.7 billion hostile bid for Illumina (Nasdaq: ILMN). 

First quarter earnings more than doubled for Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) to beat analyst expectations by a wide margin on strong iPhone sales and forecast current quarter results ahead of estimates.

Textron (NYSE: TXT) swung to a loss for the fourth quart but the results were better than expected and the company forecast 2012 results above analyst expectations.

On the downside

Corning (NYSE: GLW) disappointed with sharply lower fourth quarter earnings and warned that the company will lower glass prices this quarter.  

Fourth quarter earnings for WellPoint (NYSE: WLP) tumbled to fall short of analyst expectations as expenses climbed. 

LM Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC) reported sharply lower fourth quarter earnings as gross margin fell.

In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of nearly 5 to 3 on the NYSE and by more than 7 to 5 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks slipped 2 points to 786.