Factory orders fell in August due to a sharp drop in commercial aircraft and motor vehicle demand. The markets opened mixed with the Dow rising 5 points to 10,835 while Nasdaq lost 6 points to 2364.
On the upside
Semiconductor Microsemi (Nasdaq: MSCC) will pay approximately $430 million to acquire field programmable gate array maker Actel (Nasdaq: ACTL).
The New York Post reported that Sara Lee (NYSE: SLE) rejected a $12 billlion unsolicited acquisition offer from private equity firm KKR & Co.
Bloomberg reported that data storage firm Isilon Systems (Nasdaq: ISLN) retained the services of Qatalyst Partners to explore a possible sale of the company.
On the downside
Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) completed the purchase of its largest North American bottler Coca-Cola Enterprises (NYSE: CCE) for $3.4 billion.
Goldman Sachs downgraded Macy's (NYSE: M).
BPZ Resources (NYSE: BPZ) will suspend drilling at its Albacora offshore well along the coast of Peru after determining that the site was a dry hole.
In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of 7 to 5 on the NYSE and by nearly 5 to 3 on Nasdaq.
