An increase in new home construction sent the markets soaring during the midday with the Dow surging 168 points to 10,470. Nasdaq leaped 41 points to 2222.
On the upside
Paulson & Co. disclosed that it purchased 5 million shares of PMI Group (NYSE: PMI) .
A Seeking Alpha article expects RAIT Financial Trust's (NYSE: RAS) income stream to stabilize as income continues to grow.
Shares of China Agritech (Nasdaq: CAGC), Intrepid Potash (NYSE: IPI) and Mosiac (NYSE: MOS) all rose on speculation that BHP (NYSE: BHP) may seek other acquisition targets after Potash (NYSE: POT) rejected its $38 billion offer as too low.
On the downside
MannKind (Nasdaq: MNKD) announced a financing plan to raise $115 million by lending 8 million shares of its stock to Bank of America to sell.
VanceInfo Technolgies (NYSE: VIT) reported higher second quarter earnings but forecast third quarter income below estimates.
Wedbush analyst Scott Sutherland cited lukewarm reception to Research In Motion's (Nasdaq: RIMM) launch last week of its latest BlackBerry Torch for downgrading the smartphone maker.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 4 to 1 on the NYSE and by more than 3 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks gained 11 points to 626.
