Thanksgiving weekend sales surged to a record $52.4 billion lifting the markets to a sharply higher close with the Dow rocketing 291 points to 11,523. Nasdaq jumped 85 points to 2527.
On the upside
Bloomberg reported that Onyx Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ONXX) was exploring strategic options including the possible sale of the company.
Molycorp (NYSE: MCP) entered a joint venture with Daido Steel and Mitsubishi to produce high-powered rare earth magnets.
Speculation that NetApp (Nasdaq: NTAP) may be interested in acquiring Quantum (NYSE: QTM) lifted shares of the data storage company.
On the downside
Willbros Group (NYSE: WG) will present at the 2011 Jefferies Global Energy Conference on Novmeber 30 and will attend the UBS 2011 Engineering & Construction 1x1 Conference in Houston on December 1, 2011 but the stock price dropped.
Greif (NYSE: GEF) blamed disappointing results in Europe for lowering its full year earnings guidance.
Shares of Groupon (Nasdaq: GRPN) continued falling after the online coupon site failed to offer national Black Friday deals.
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 leaped 31 points to 697.