The markets closed higher with the Dow climbing 96 points to 12,578 as investors welcomed plans by the International Monetary Fund to increase the European bailout fund by up to $500 billion. Nasdaq soared 41 points to 2769.
On the upside
Barclays Capital upgraded Radio Shack (NYSE: RSH) to an Equal Weight rating from Underweight.
PHH (NYSE: PHH) completed its $250 million convertible senior notes offering.
Brighton Markets issued a research report on United Rentals (NYSE: URI).
On the downside
Sunoco (NYSE: SUN) completed the spin-off of SunCoke (NYSE: SXC).
Fulton Financial (Nasdaq: FULT) reported higher fourth quarter earnings but the results fell short of expectations.
Investors locked in profits on Ku6 Media (Nasdaq: KUTV), whose stock price soared yesterday on news of its partnership with YouTube.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 4 to 1 on the NYSE and by more than 3 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks surged 13 points to 779.
