On the upside
Shares of Ireland-based Elan (NYSE: ELN) surged after Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) paid $1 billion to take an 18% stake in the drug research firm.
An analyst upgraded Evergreen Solar (Nasdaq: ESLR).
On the downside
Exelon (NYSE: EXC) offered $8 billion in stock to buy NRG (NYSE: NRG) in a hostile bid to combine the two power generating businesses.
Illumina (Nasdaq: ILMN) lowered its outlook due to reduced demand for its genetic testing services.
A federal appeals court allowed subscribers to Dish Network (Nasdaq: DISH) to continue using digital recording technology that TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO) is challenging.
The FDA stopped sleep aid drug trials aimed at children. Shares of Sepracor (Nasdaq: SEPR) promptly fell.
In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of 5 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 5 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks dropped 12 points to 504.
