Reports that European leaders made progress over the weekend on administrative details of the financial rescue fund sent the markets soaring during the midday with the Dow jumping 280 points to 11,512. Nasdaq leaped 78 points to 2519.
On the upside
Motley Fool recommended Avanir Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: AVNR) on Friday as one of seven Black Friday biotech bargains.
Merge Healthcare (Nasdaq: MRGE) announced the launch of its new Merge Honeycomb cloud-based platform for sharing medical images.
Citigroup upgraded Genworth Financial (NYSE: GNW) to a Buy rating citing the insurer's attractive valuation.
On the downside
Ternium (NYSE: TX) will pay a premium of approximately $2.2 billion to acquire a stake in Brazilian steel producer Usiminas.
Trefis wrote that a fair price for LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) would be $43 per share.
Investors locked in profits on Royale Energy (Nasdaq: ROYL) whose stock price soared last week after the company announced two natural gas discoveries.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 7 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 6 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks surged 29 points to 695.
