News that the borrowing capacity of the federal government will be exhausted on October 17 weighed the markets down to a lower open with the Dow losing 22 points to 15,312. Nasdaq lost 5 points to 3762.

On the upside

Stryker (NYSE: SYK) will pay a premium  of approximately $1.65 billion in cash to acquire Mako Surgical (Nasdaq: MAKO).

Merck Serono will continue developing the cancer treatment tecemotide, which is licensed from Oncotheyreon (Nasdaq: ONTY).

Ascena Retail Group (Nasdaq: ASNA) impressed with sharply higher fourth quarter earnings and revenue that surpassed analyst expectations.

On the downside

Geo Investing noted that the National Business Daily newspaper in China agreed with its findings that L & L Energy (NYSE: LLEN) did not own a number of mines that it claims to own.

Motley Fool wrote that J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) was unlikely to survive.

Morgan Stanley downgraded Carnival (NYSE: CCL) from an Equal Weight rating to an Underweight rating.  

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 10 to 9 on both the NYSE and on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 slipped 2 points to 1694.