Upbeat earnings lifted the markets to a sharply higher open with the Dow climbing 96 points to 16,470. Nasdaq gained 26 points to 4208.
On the upside
A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended approval of Chelsea Therapeutics' (Nasdaq: CHTP) symptomatic neurogenic orthostatic hypotension treatment Northera.
NQ Mobile (NYSE: NQ) will power all new Sprint (NYSE: S) Android smartphones.
Seeking Alpha noted that three Vical (Nasdaq: VICL) insiders including chief executive Vijay B. Samant bought company stock last Friday.
On the downside
Fastenal (Nasdaq: FAST) reported higher fourth quarter earnings but the results missed analyst expectations.
The Russian government may ban cross border payments using anonymous electronic wallets sending shares of payment services provider Qiwi (Nasdaq: QIWI) tumbling.
Bloomberg reported that Nu Skin Enterprises (NYSE: NUS) said that there were inaccuracies in a People's Daily report.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 2 to 1 on the NYSE and by more than 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 gained 8 points to 1847. Bitcoin rose $20.00 or 2.16% to $945.00.
