Markets Flat Ahead Of Fed Minutes Release Tomorrow
August 21, 2012 at 05:14 AM EDT
The markets traded flat during the midday with the Dow adding 7 points to 13,279 ahead of the release of minutes on Wednesday from the Federal Reserve meeting last month. Nasdaq rose 4 points to 3080.On the upsideCapital One upgraded Rex Energy (Nasdaq: REXX) to a Strong Buy rating. Rising crude oil prices lifted shares of Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE: ANR) .Nordson (NYSE: NDSN) reported higher third quarter earnings that beat expectations as revenue climbed and the company forecast current quarter results ahead of estimates.On the downsideTech Data (Nasdaq: TECD) disappointed with lower second quarter earnings that fell short of analyst expectations. Youku.com (NYSE: YOKU) and Tudou Holdings (Nasdaq: TUDO) shareholders approved merging the two companies which will increase weekly users to surpass Baidu’s (Nasdaq: BIDU) weekly users.Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) narrowed first quarter losses but investors were disappointed with flat revenue from the bookseller’s Nook business.In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 2 to 1 on both the NYSE and on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks gained 6 points to 822.
