Markets rise as oil inventories fall

The markets traded higher during the midday with Dow adding 17 points to 18,085 as crude oil inventories fell. Nasdaq gained 17 points to 4,994.

On the upside

NTELOS Holdings (Nasdaq: NTLS) presented at the Jefferies 2015 TMT Conference in Miami this morning.

The Food and Drug Administration granted rare pediatric disease designation to Fibrocell Science's (Nasdaq: FCSC) orphan gene-therapy drug candidate FCX-007 to treat recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa.

Silver Strand Resources (Nasdaq: SSRI) swung to a profit for the first quarter as revenue surged.

On the downside

EZchip Semiconductor (Nasdaq: EXCH) fell to a loss for the first quarter and announced that the company's largest client chose to use EZchip's NP-5 network processor rather than the NPS-400 in the customer's next generation line cards.

Star Bulk Carriers (Nasdaq: SBLK) priced its public offering of 56.25 million common shares at the discounted price of $3.20 per share.

Post Holdings (NYSE: POST) announced that the avian flu has affected approximately 20% of its egg supply.

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 7 to 5 on the NYSE while decliners barely edged out advancers by nearly 10 to 9 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 added 3 points to 2102. Bitcoin added $1 to $242.