On the upside
Jazz Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: JAZZ) made interest payments to senior secured notes holders raised $7 million through a private placement.
Shares of insurers Aetna (NYSE: AET) and UnitedHealth (NYSE: UNH) rose as government negotiators neared a deal with hospitals to reduce costs as part of the government's health care reform.
GenCorp (NYSE: GY) reported higher second quarter earnings even as sales slipped.
On the downside
Pain Therapeutics (Nasdaq: PTIE) will resubmit its application to the Food and Drug Administration for its pain medication Remoxy in 2010. The FDA requested more data on Remoxy at the end of 2008.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Justice is investigating possible antitrust violations among mobile service providers. Shares of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) all fell.
PMI (NYSE: PMI) released its Market Risk Index which forecast lower housing prices in 85% of the nation's real estate markets over the next two years.
In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of more than 5 to 2 on the NYSE and by more than 5 to 3 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks lost 4 points to 489.