Investors embraced an unexpected gain in the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index to send the markets soaring to a sharply higher close with the Dow surging 254 points to 10,269. Nasdaq leaped 62 points to 2176.
On the upside
Local.com (Nasdaq: LOCM) entered an agreement with Yahoo Publisher Network to distribute paid search results.
Four Exelixis (Nasdaq: EXEL) officers purchased over $1 million worth of common shares in August.
Second quarter earnings for Jos. A. Bank Clothiers (Nasdaq: JOSB) climbed to beat expectations as revenue rose.
Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) unveiled new iPod features and introduced a lower priced, redesigned Apple TV.
The Securities and Exchange Commission's investigation into KB Home (NYSE: KBH) for possible accounting violations ended with no enforcement action.
JMP Securities analyst Alex Gauna downgraded Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) and lowered second quarter as well as fiscal 2012 earnings estimates citing competition from Android smartphones and Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhones but the stock price climbed.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 5 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 5 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks jumped 22 points to 624.
