The markets opened mixed with the Dow losing 43 points to 16,487 while Nasdaq rose 12 points to 4165 ahead of the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s meeting last month. 

On the upside 

The Food and Drug Administration accepted ARCA biopharma’s (Nasdaq: ABIO) Gencaro Investigational New Drug application.

Micron Technology (Nasdaq: MU) swung to a better than expected profit for the first quarter as revenue surged.

Forest Laboratories (NYSE: FRX) will pay approximately $2.9 billion in cash to acquire Aptalis.

On the downside

J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) affirmed its fourth quarter forecast for an increase in same store sales but the department store operator failed to provide sales figures for the holiday shopping season. 

Needham downgraded Ambarella (Nasdaq: AMBA) from a Buy rating to a Hold rating.

The Container Store (NYSE: TCS) widened third quarter losses even as revenue rose.

In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of more than 2 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 5 to 4 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 added a point to 1839. Bitcoin tumbled $92.71 or 10.13% to $915.11.