Markets Rise Ahead Of ECB Meeting

September 05, 2012 at 10:48 AM EDT

The markets opened higher with the Dow rising 31 points to 13,066 ahead of the European Central Bank meeting tomorrow. Nasdaq added 5 points to 3080.
On the upside
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) will introduce two new Lumia phones running on Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows 8.
Delta (NYSE: DAL) reported a 4.0% increase in August passenger unit revenue.
Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg pledged to sell none of his shares in the social networking site for at least a year.
On the downside
Francesca's Holdings (Nasdaq: FRAN) reported sharply higher second quarter earnings that more than doubled to top analyst estimates but the stock price fell after announcing the retirement of chief executive John De Meritt at the end of the year. UBS analyst Steven Eliscu downgraded Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) to a Neutral rating.
AuRico Gold (NYSE: AUQ) lowered its production guidance for 2012 and 2013 while increasing capital expenditure.
In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of nearly 5 to 4 on the NYSE and by 9 to 7 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks eased a fraction to 822.