Comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that the nation's troubled economy was on the right path to long-term growth lifted the markets to a sharply higher close with the Dow surging
134
points to 11,284. Nasdaq leaped 60
points to
2479.
HollyFrontier (NYSE: HFC) increased its quarterly dividend to 17.5 cents per share from 15 cents per share payable October 4, 2011 to shareholders of record September 16, 2011.
DFC Global (Nasdaq: DLLR) reversed year ago losses to post a better than expected profit for the fourth quarter.
Quanex Building Products (NYSE: NX) increased its stock repurchase plan to buy back an additional million shares of common stock.
On the downside
UBS analyst Brian Pitz lowered his 2012 revenue outlook for Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) citing falling page views.
Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) reassigned chief communications officer Bill Wohl to a different position and named chief marketing officer Marty Homlish to lead corporate communications on an interim basis.
Harbin Electric (Nasdaq: HRBN) denied rumors that it altered documents filed in China with the SAIC and asserted that no directors or managers have resigned.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 4 to 1 on the NYSE and by 7 to 2 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks jumped 17 point to 691.
