The markets plunged to close sharply lower with the Dow sinking 170
points to 11,149 ahead of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech tomorrow. Nasdaq plummeted 48
points to
2419.
Bargain hunters lifted shares of PulteGroup (NYSE: PHM) whose stock price tumbled after Tuesday's report that new home sales dropped.
Standard & Poor's revised its standards for assessing the credit worthiness of bond insurers such as Assured Guaranty (NYSE: AGO) and MBIA.
Yangkou Town, Shouguang City in China will compensate Gulf Resources' (Nasdaq: GURE) subsidiary Shouguang City Haoyuan Chemical for relocation expenses incurred when the government recalled the lease at the company's Factory No. 4.
On the downside
Rue21 (Nasdaq: RUE) reported higher second quarter earnings but the results missed estimates and the teen clothing retailer warned of disappointing summer sales.
Hormel Foods (NYSE: HRL) reported higher third quarter earnings but the volume of products sold remained flat.
Guess (NYSE: GES) reported lower second quarter earnings and forecast current quarter results below estimates.
In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of nearly 3 to 1 on the NYSE and by more than 4 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks plunged 18 points to 674.
