The markets advanced during the midday with the Dow gaining 68 points to 12,073 as Greek finance minister Evangelos Venizelos assured the global community that he would presure his government to approve new austerity measures. Nasdaq rose 16 points to 2632.
On the upside
Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) began accepting pre-orders for Hewlett-Packard's (Nasdaq: HPQ) TouchPad tablet. Separately, chief executive Neil Austrian indicated to an Oppenheimer analyst that the office supplies retailer may explore a possible merger with OfficeMax (NYSE: OMX).
Piper Jaffray upgraded Molycorp (NYSE: MCP) to an Overweight rating while J.P. Morgan lifted its price target for the rare earths company.
Shares of Renren (NYSE: RENN) climbed ahead of its earnings release after market close.
On the downside
Investors locked in profits on BPZ Resources (NYSE: BPZ), whose shares climbed last week after the oil and natural gas company provided resource estimates for Block Z-1.
A New York Times article detailed the millions earned by brokerages, law firms and insiders from LinkedIn's (NYSE: LNKD) initial public offering.
Sanford Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu downgraded Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) to an Underperform rating.
