Falling home prices weighed the markets down to a lower open with the Dow losing 24 points to 11,028. Nasdaq fell 15 points to 2509.
On the upside
Swiss industrial automation company ABB offered approximately $3.1 billion to acquire Baldor Electric (NYSE: BEZ).
Keryx Biopharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: KERX) reported positive results from a late stage clinical trial of its hyperphosphatemia treatment ZerenaxT.
Icagen (Nasdaq: ICGN) received a $1 million milestone payment from Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) after the two companies selected a compound to proceed with further clinical trials of its pain and related disorder sodium channel program.
On the downside
Orckit Communications (Nasdaq: ORCT) priced its offering of approximately 3 million common shares and warrants to purchase approximately 1.8 million common shares at $2.75 per unit.
Seagate Technology (Nasdaq: STX) ended discussions with undisclosed private equity firms for the company to be taken private.
Mecox Lane (Nasdaq: MCOX) reported higher third quarter earnings as revenue climbed but sales at its company run stores dropped.
In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of nearly 7 to 2 on the NYSE and by 4 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks dropped 8 points to 723.
