Sharply higher open even as home sales drop

The markets opened sharply higher with the Dow soaring 98 points to 17,903 despite a drop in existing home sales. Nasdaq rose 9 points to 4,775.

On the upside

Achillion Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ACHN) reported positive interim results from two studies supporting a short duration, potentially best-in-disease regimen of its proprietary NS5A and nucleotide inhibitors, ACH-3102 and ACH-3422.

ChinaNet Online Holdings (Nasdaq: CNET) entered a long-term strategic partnership agreement with MediaFun Creative.

TD Securities upgraded Blackberry (Nasdaq: BBRY) from a Hold rating to a Buy rating.

On the downside

Prescription drug benefit manager Express Scripts (Nasdaq: ESRX) will no longer cover Gilead Sciences' (Nasdaq: GILD) hepatitis C treatment Sovaldi beginning January 1.

Ocwen Financial (NYSE: OCN) agreed to a legal settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services. Founder and executive chairman William C. Erbey will resign and the company will pay $100 million to the Department of Financial Services and $50 million to borrowers who had foreclosure actions filed against them.

Retreating crude oil prices weighed down shares of SeaDrill (NYSE: SDRL).

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 5 to 4 on the NYSE and by nearly 5 to 3 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 added 2 points to 2073. Bitcoin rose $5 to $326.