The markets opened flat with the Dow losing 7 points to 17,791 over a disappointing start to the holiday shopping season. Nasdaq slipped 2 points to 5,125.
On the upside
Oramed Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ORMP) signed a $50 million license and investment agreement with Hefei Tianhui Incubator Technologies for exclusive rights to market Oramed's oral insulin capsule in China.
Additional data has been published that supports the effectiveness of Anavex Life Sciences' (Nasdaq: AVXL) ANAVEX 3-71 in treating Alzheimer's disease.
iKang Healthcare Group (Nasdaq: KANG) received an offer from a consortium of investors to take the company private for a premium of $22 per share in cash.
On the downside
Computer Sciences (NYSE: CSC) completed the spinoff of its government business into a separate publicly traded company, CSRA (NYSE: CSRA).
SunEdison (NYSE: SUNE) stock extended its losses.
Investors locked in profits on Xenoport (Nasdaq: XNPT).
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 5 to 3 on the NYSE and by nearly 5 to 3 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 slipped 3 point2 to 2,087. Bitcoin edged up a fraction to $371.