The Dow closed at a new record high by rising 19 points to 15,484 on hopes that disappointing retail sales will delay tapering of the Federal Reserve's bond buying program. Nasdaq gained 7 points to 3607.

On the upside

MB Financial will pay approximately $680 million in cash to acquire Taylor Capital Group (Nasdaq: TAYC).

Raymond James analyst Hans Mosesmann upgraded Applied Micro Circuits (Nasdaq: AMCC) from a Strong Buy rating to an Outperform rating.

China's plan to quadruple its solar power generating capacity by 2015 boosted shares of Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ), JA Solar Holdings (Nasdaq: JASO), Real Goods Solar (Nasdaq: RSOL) and Renesola (NYSE: SOL).

On the downside

A jury found that four of WiLAN's (Nasdaq: WILN) patents were not infringed upon in a patent suit againt Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, HTC and Sony Mobile.

The Female Health Co. (Nasdaq: FHCO) warned of lower third quarter shipments.

Shares of Ceres (Nasdaq: CERE) continued falling.

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 2 to 1 on the NYSE and by 5 to 3 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 index added 2 points to 1682.