The New York equities markets were up on Thursday on some good performances by individual stocks as well as on the news that unemployment claims were down last week from the week before.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.8 percent to 10,552.78, the Nasdaq composite added 1.2 percent to 2,141.22, and the S&P 500 was up 0.9 percent to 1,227.86.
Two of six new stocks did very well on the day. WebMD, the online health information portal, gained 39.4 percent to $24.40 in its first day of trade. Fuel distributor Global Partners was up 7.7 percent to $23.70.
In addition, the Nasdaq had a couple of big gainers for the day. Medical information services company IDX Systems saw its shares rise by 23 percent to $43.25 on the news that General Electric will purchase the company for $1.2 billion.
In addition, open-source software provider Red Hat gained 29.9 percent to $21.44 when it reported higher than expected revenues and profits.
But while there were big winners on the day, there were also big losers. Cypress Bioscience, also listed on the Nasdaq, fell 56.5 percent to $5.53 when it was learned that a study it did on a fibromyalgia treatment in association with Forest Laboratories did not meet its planned goals.
Forest Labs were down as well, by 9 percent to $38.50. Another big loser on the day was healthcare services provider Amerigroup, which lost 41.6 percent to $19.81 on a warning that there would be losses in the upcoming quarter, which it blamed on rising health care costs.
In less dramatic movements, PepsiCo gained 2.7 percent on the day to $56.56 on a report of higher than expected revenues.