On the upside
Fairfax Financial will pay $38 per share in cash to acquire Zenith National Insurance (NYSE: ZNT), a 31.4% premium over yesterday's closing price.
Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) narrowed fourth quarter losses.
Fourth quarter earnings for ABB (NYSE: ABB) more than doubled to beat expectations.
On the downside
The Food and Drug Administration sent XenoPort (Nasdaq: XNPT) and GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) a Complete Response letter with more questions about their restless leg syndrome treatment Horizant.
Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) reversed year ago losses to post a profit for the fourth quarter but the stock price fell as revenue failed to meet overly optimistic expectations.
Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) narrowed fourth quarter losses but investors were disappointed that results failed to top estimates.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 9 to 7 on the NYSE while decliners edged out advancers by nearly 9 to 7 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks eased a fraction to 624.