Soaring unemployment sparked fears of an even deeper and prolonged recession sending the markets lower during the midday with the Dow tumbling 90 points to 8286. Nasdaq fell 6 points to 1439.
On the upside
Thoratec (Nasdaq: THOR) reported that its new, smaller HeartMate II implanted device is more effective than an older model.Microsemi (Nasdaq: MSCC) said that while the company is reviewing chief executive James Peterson's academic records, the chipmaker remains confident of Peterson's leadership.
Prudential Financial (NYSE: PRU) will sell its stake in Wachovia Securities to Wells Fargo and has applied to participate in the government's capital purchase program.
On the downside
Orexigen Therapeutics (Nasdaq: OREX) halted mid-stage clinical trials of two experimental weight loss drugs in order to have enough resources to continue late-stage studies.
Barclays cited higher risks from contract renegotiations for downgrading Energy Conversion Devices (Nasdaq: ENER).
Argentina sued a unit of AES (NYSE: AES) alleging that the electricity distribution company improperly transferred debt which rendered the company underfunded.In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of more than 2 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 3 to 2 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks lost 3 points to 437.
