On the upside
Orexigen Therapeutics (Nasdaq: OREX) reported upbeat trial results for its obesity treatment Contrave.
Bloomberg News reported that Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) will launch an initial public offering in Hong Kong next month for its Macau casinos.
UBS upgraded Elan (NYSE: ELN).
On the downside
Jefferies & Co. analyst George Notter downgraded Infinera (Nasdaq: INFN) saying that competition will increase.
Rochdale Securities analyst Richard Bove slashed his full year earnings outlook for 2009 through 2011 for Citigroup (NYSE: C).
The Food and Drug Administration issued a response letter to Labopharm (Nasdaq: DDSS) stating that its new drug application for the antidepressant trazodone could not be approved due to deficiencies at Labopharm's manufacturing facility.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 5 to 2 on the NYSE and by nearly 5 to 3 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks added 4 points to 523.