The markets closed mixed with the Dow adding 4 points to 12,107 as congressional deadlock on payroll tax extensions continued. Nasdaq dropped 25 points to 2577.
On the upside
Exane BNP Paribas upgraded Lloyds Banking (NYSE: LYG) to an Outperform rating.
Actuant (NYSE: ATU) reported sharply higher first quarter earnings that surpassed analyst expectations as revenue climbed.
FSI International (Nasdaq: FSII) widened first quarter losses but the company forecast current quarter results ahead of estimates.
On the downside
Standard & Poor's upgraded Red Hat's (NYSE: RHT) credit rating to BBB- from BB+ but the stock price dropped.
Enterprise software firm SAP (NYSE: SAP) tumbled in response to Oracle's (Nasdaq: ORCL) earnings miss.
E-Commerce China Dangdang (NYSE: DANG) launched its e-book platform but the stock price dropped.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 5 to 3 on the NYSE while decliners barely edged out advancers by a slim margin on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks added 2 points to 740.
