Mixed open ahead of midterm elections

The markets opened mixed with the Dow losing 14 points to 17,375 while Nasdaq rose 11 points to 4,642 ahead of the midterm elections tomorrow.

On the upside

Publicis will pay a premium of approximately $3.7 billon in cash to acquire Sapient (Nasdaq: SAPE).

The Food and Drug Administration removed its full clinical hold on Geron's (Nasdaq: GERN) investigational new drug application for imetelstat.

Covance (NYSE: CVD) will be acquired by LabCorp (NYSE: LH) in a cash and stock deal valued at approximately $1.6 billion.

On the downside

RCS Capital terminated its $700 million offer to buy American Realty Capital Properties (Nasdaq: ARCP).

Nymox Pharmaceutical (Nasdaq: NYMX) reported disappointing results from two Phase 3 studies of NX-1207.

Monness, Crespi, Hardt initiated coverage of Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) with a Neutral rating and set a price target of $40.

In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of more than 10 to 9 on both the NYSE and on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 eased a fraction to 2017. Bitcoin added $2 to $327.