Upbeat economic data boosted the markets during the midday with the Dow leaping 128 points to 11,705. Nasdaq soared 42 points to 2695.
On the upside
Mortgage insurer PMI Group (NYSE: PMI) rose after Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) agreed to repurchase $3 billion worth of mortgages from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Dahlman Rose analysts lifted their price target for Molycorp (NYSE: MCP) to $85 per share saying that demand for rare earth metals will climb.
LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) sold $240 million worth of convertible preferred stock in its wholly owned polysilicon manufacturing subsidiaries.
On the downside
EDAP TMS (Nasdaq: EDAP) issued more than 1.4 million common shares to redeem part of its convertible debt and cancel some outstanding warrants.
The Food and Drug administration granted Repros Therapeutics (Nasdaq: RPRX) Institutional Review Board approval to begin a Phase IIb clinical trial of its secondary hypogonadism treatment Androxal but the stock price fell.
Expedia (NYSE: EXPE) removed American Airlines' (NYSE: AMR) schedule and airfare from its website.
In the broad market, advancing issues edged out decliners by a margin of nearly 7 to 2 on the NYSE and by more than 3 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks surged 14 points to 798.
