Pending home sales rose in March to lift the markets to a higher open with the Dow gaining 61 points to 14,773. Nasdaq climbed 28 points to 3308.
On the upside
Bayer will pay approximately $1.1 billion to acquire Conceptus (Nasdaq: CPTS).
Alibaba purchased an 18% stake in Sina's (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo microblogging site.
Petroleo Brasileiro (NYSE: PBR) trades ex-dividend tomorrow, April 30, 2013.
On the downside
Nam Tai Electronics (NYSE: NTE) swung to a profit for the first quarter as revenue more than doubled but gross profit margin slipped.
National Bank of Greece (NYSE: NBG) will offer 9.75 billion euros worth of stock in order to raise capital.
Kinross Gold (NYSE: KGC) will proceed wil a full feasibility study to expand its Tasiast operation with a 38,000 tone per day mill.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 7 to 2 on the NYSE and by more than 5 to 2 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 index gained 8 points to 1590.
