Strong Gain In Factory Orders Boosts Markets
August 31, 2012 at 02:39 AM EDT
A strong 2.8% gain in July factory orders boosted the markets to a sharply higher open with the Dow surging 117 points to 13,117. Nasdaq gained 14 points to 3063.On the upsideShares of StemCells (NYSE: STEM) continued soaring ahead of its interim data presentation at the 51st Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Spinal Cord Society on Monday, September 3. OmniVision Technologies (Nasdaq: OVTI) reported sharply lower first quarter earnings but the company forecast second quarter revenue well ahead of analyst expectations.Second quarter earnings dropped for SAIC (NYSE: SAI) but the company announced plans to separate into two publicly traded companies.On the downsideBMP Capital cut its estimates for Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) and slashed its price target to $15. Zumiez (Nasdaq: ZUMZ) disappointed with lower second quarter earnings and forecast current quarter results that fell short of analyst expectations.Employees at Gold Fields’ (NYSE: GFI) KDC Gold Mine in South Africa began an illegal strike on Wednesday, August 29.In the broad market, advancing issues barely edged out decliners by a slim margin on the NYSE while decliners outpaced advancers by nearly 5 to 4 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks lost 2 points to 806.
