Upbeat earnings along with corporate consolidations lifted the markets to a sharply higher close with the Dow surging 104 points to 11,913. Nasdaq leaped 61 points to 2699.
On the upside
Solar stocks JA Solar Holdings (Nasdaq: JASO), Suntech Power Holdings (NYSE: STP) and Yingli Green Energy (NYSE: YGE) climbed after Yingli reported increased demand in Germany and Italy due to low prices.
Sky-mobi (Nasdaq: MOBI) entered a strategic alliance with SINA (Nasdaq: SINA) to offer SINA’s Weibo.com as a downloadable application through Sky-mobi’s social network.
Plains All American Pipeline made a hostile bid for SemGroup (NYSE: SEMG) valued at approximately $1 billion.
On the downside
Motley Fool wrote that Western Refining’s (NYSE: WNR) margins were improving but the stock price fell.
A Seeking Alpha contributor wrote that Eastman Kodak’s (NYSE: EK) business model has become obsolete with the proliferation of good phone cameras.
Shares of First Niagara Financial Group (NYSE: FNFG) continued falling after reporting third quarter earnings last week that fell short of expectations.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 9 to 2 on the NYSE and by more than 4 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks jumped 23 points to 736.
