On the upside
Shares of Omniture (Nasdaq: OMTR) soared after Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE), the maker of website design tools, offered $1.8 billion for the business software maker.
Gold prices hit an 18-month high lifting commodity stocks. Shares of Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold (NYSE: FCX) and Hecla Mining (NYSE: HL) rose.
Oil prices held steady at $71 a barrel. Shares of Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC) were among the morning's biggest gainers.
On the downside
Shares of Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) fell bucking the rally among business software stocks. Analysts expect modest earnings growth.
AGCO (NYSE: AGCO) lowered its outlook for the remainder of the year due to lower sales of its agricultural equipment.
An analyst downgraded IDEX (NYSE: IEX) due to valuation. The company makes industrial equipment.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 2 to 1 on the NYSE and by a margin of 5 to 3 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks added 2 points to 607.
