Benzinga Mid-Day Market Update

Following the market opening Wednesday morning, the Dow was up about 0.31 percent, roughly 42.01 points. The NASDAQ rose about 0.15 percent, or 4.70 points, while the S&P traded up 0.26 percent, increasing 3.86 points. Shares of Corning GLW rose 2.28 percent to $13.02 in early trading following an upgrade at Goldman Sachs. Shares of Questcor Pharmaceuticals QCOR took an absolute beating mid way through the morning as share prices fell nearly 55 percent, falling as low as $22.42, following a rumor that Aetna AET would no longer fund the drug Acthar. After it was state that Aetna would still offer partial coverage, QCOR recovered a bit, and is now trading down 29.97 percent, around $35.38. Groupon GRPN announced that it would be entering the mobile payments space with an app similar to square. Shares of Groupon surged following the announcement, up 5.33 percent, trading around $4.94. In early trading this morning, Apple AAPL hit a new all-time high, still riding the wave from the iPhone 5 release. Shares of Apple traded around $701.29 by mid day. In economic reports, MBA Mortgage Applications came in at -0.2 percent, well below the prior figure of 11.1 percent. The Housing Starts number came in at 750K, higher than the revised estimate of 733K, and an increase over the previous figure of 746K. Building Permits came in at 803K, below the estimated 811K and the previous figure of 812K. U.S. Crude Oil Inventories came in at 8.534 million, much higher than the expected 1.0 million. The U.S. Distillate Inventory came in at -322K, below the expected 1.0 million, while US Gasoline Inventories came in at -1.407 million, much lower than the expected 1.0 million.