A narrowing of the nation's trade deficit lifted the markets to a higher close with the Dow gaining 40 points to 11,410. Nasdaq climbed 20 points to 2637.
On the upside
Express (NYSE: EXPR) priced its secondary public offering of 12.5 million common shares at $15.50 per share.
IDT (NYSE: IDT) reversed year ago losses to post a profit for the first quarter as revenue rose.
Shares of Local.com (Nasdaq: LOCM) and SuperMedia (Nasdaq: SPMD) both surged in hopes that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) may acquire one of them after Groupon rejected Google's $6 billion offer.
On the downside
China Shengda Packaging Group (Nasdaq: CPGI) priced its public offering of approximately 8 million common shares at a discounted $4.00 per share.
Shares of Chinese mobile application store Sky-mobi (Nasdaq: MOBI) plunged on its first trading day.
L&L Energy (Nasdaq: LLEN) reported higher second quarter earnings but the stock price fell.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 2 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 7 to 3 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks soared 9 points to 776.
