Merger and acquisition news tempered disappointment with a larger than expected drop in January housing starts. The markets opened mixed with the Dow rising 11 points to 14,046 while Nasdaq lost 5 points to 3207.
On the upside
Total System Services (NYSE: TSS) will pay a premium of approximately $1.4 billion in cash to acquire Netspend Holdings (Nasdaq: NTSP).
Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) and OfficeMax (NYSE: OMX) will merge in an all stock transaction valued at approximately $1.2 billion.
Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) reported lower fourth quarter earnings but the results beat analyst expectations by a wide margin.
On the downside
Millennial Media (NYSE: MM) will acquire privately held mobile media buying and targeting platform Metaresolver in an all cash deal.
Indonesia did not approve Harvest Natural Resources' (NYSE: HNR) proposed $725 million sale of its Venezuelan subsidiary HNR Energia BV to Indonesia's PT Pertamina.
Oncolytics Biotech (Nasdaq: ONCY) priced its public offering of 8 million common shares at the discounted price of $4.00 per share.
In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of nearly 5 to 3 on the NYSE and by 9 to 7 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 index slipped 2 points to 1528.
