The insider trading conviction of three Wall Street traders weighed the markets down during the midday with the Dow losing 20 points to 11,931. Nasdaq fell 9 points to 2634.
On the upside
Morgan Stanley analyst Ravi Shanker upgraded A123 Systems (Nasdaq: AONE) to an Overweight rating and set a price target of $9.
Graham Packaging (NYSE: GRM), which already agreed to be purchased by Silgan Holdings, received an unsolicited, higher acquisition offer of approximately $1.6 billion in cash.
Honeywell International (NYSE: HON) will pay approximately $491 million in cash to acquire EMS Technologies (Nasdaq: ELMG).
On the downside
Concerns that China's economy will slow its pace of growth weighed down shares of E-Commerce China Dangdan (NYSE: DANG), Renren (NYSE: RENN) and Youku.com (NYSE: YOKU).
Shares of Molycorp (NYSE: MCP) continued falling after announcing a public offering of 10 million common shares at $51 per share last week.
Quanex Building Products (NYSE: NX) disappointed by swinging to a loss for the second quarter and lowering its full year revenue guidance.
