Falling Retail Sales Weighs Down Markets
July 16, 2012 at 02:51 AM EDT
A drop in June retail sales weighed the markets down to a lower open with the Dow falling 58 points to 12,718. Nasdaq lost 13 points to 2894.On the upsideGlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) is close to finalizing a deal to acquire Human Genome Sciences (Nasdaq: HGSI) for as much as $3 billion.Citigroup (NYSE: C) reported lower second quarter earnings but the results beat analyst expectations.TPG will pay a premium of approximately $1.9 billion to take Par Pharmaceutical Companies (NYSE: PRX) private.On the downsideAT&T (NYSE: T) slashed the price of Nokia’s (NYSE: NOK) flagship Lumia 900 by half.IsoRay (NYSE: ISR) announced a registered direct placement of $3.5 million worth of common stock.BMO Capital downgraded Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE: ANR) to an Underperform rating.In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of more than 2 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks slipped 2 points to 798.
