The markets drifted lower ahead of this week's economic news while oil prices dipped below $90 a barrel. The Dow slipped 14 points to 13,356 while Nasdaq was down 4 points to 2656.

On the upside

Shares of Activision (Nasdaq: ATVI) soared on news that Vivendi SA bought a majority stake in the video game publisher.

Canadian fertilizer maker Agrium (NYSE: AGU) offered $2.07 billion in cash to buy Colorado-based UAP Holding (Nasdaq: UAPH), a distributor of crop production supplies.

Shares of Deere & Company (NYSE: DE) rose ahead of today's dividend payment and its two-for-one stock split.

On the downside

Shares of E-Trade Financial (Nasdaq: ETFC) after analysts downgraded the troubled brokerage firm.

Analysts downgraded XenoPort (Nasdaq: XNPT) due to valuation after its shares hit all-time highs on positive drug trial news.

VeriFone Holdings (Nasdaq: PAY) blamed accounting errors for overstating its profit before taxes by almost $30 million sending shares of the payments processing equipment maker tumbling.

In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advaners by a margin of nearly 2 to 1 on both the NYSE and on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks lost 5 points to 761.