Concerns that the auto bailout plan will fail in the face of Republican opposition sent the markets lower during the midday with the Dow slipping 21 points to 8740. Nasdaq lost 9 points to 1556.
On the upside
Chinese search engine Baidu.com (Nasdaq: BIDU) cut its fourth quarter revenue outlook after suspending thousands of paid search clients who were selling medical products without appropriate licenses. The stock price has collapsed nearly 75% sinces January.Diodes (Nasdaq: DIOD) revised its fourth quarter forecast and announced that it will buy back $46.5 million of its $230 million senior convertible notes.
Amylin Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: AMLN) will seek FDA approval for the once a week diabetes drug exenatide LAR the company developed with Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) and Alkermes (Nasdaq: ALKS).
On the downside
Urban Outfitters (Nasdaq: URBN) reported flat November same store sales and warned that sales will most likely fall prompting analyst to cut their price targets for the lifestyle specialty retailer.
Cadence Design Systems (Nasdaq: CDNS) swung to a loss for the third quarter as revenue plunged and forecast disappointing fourth quarter results.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of 10 to 9 on the NYSE while advancers were on par with decliners on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks slipped 2 points to 475.