The markets opened higher with the Dow climbing 88 points to 12,110 even as November retail sales rose less than expected. Nasdaq gained 15 points to 2627.
On the upside
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and MBIA (NYSE: MBI) settled their lawsuits against each other with Morgan Stanley taking a $1.8 billion charge and unloading $5 billion of its risky financial assets.
Urban Outfitters (Nasdaq: URBN) reported higher same store sales in the fourth quarter to date.
Baxter International (NYSE: BAX) will pay approximately $325 million to acquire Synovis Life Technologies (Nasdaq: SYNO).
On the downside
Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) reported lower third quarter earnings that fell short of analyst expectations as increased competition forced the consumer electronics retailer to lower prices.
Endocyte (Nasdaq: ECYT) reported inconclusive results from a Phase 2b PRECEDENT trial of its ovarian cancer treatment EC145.
An arbitrator sided with Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO) in its challenge to Ivanhoe Mines’ (NYSE: IVN) Shareholders’ Rights Plan by allowing the anti-dilution rights that were granted to Rio Tinto to apply.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 4 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 7 to 2 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks climbed 8 points to 741.
