Mid-Afternoon Market Update: NuVasive Rises While EXCO Resourced Drops

Toward the end of trading Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.29 percent to 13,368.20 while the NASDAQ rose 0.36 percent to 3,102.92. The S&P also rose, increasing 0.14 percent to 1,459.25.

The battle for Clearwire

continued this morning, as Dish Network

made an offer for the company of $3.30 per share, topping Sprint's

deal by about 15 percent. This sent Clearwire shares up about 7.5 percent in early trading.

NuVasive

rose 10.53 percent at the open Wednesday to $17.42 after the company issued some positive guidance this morning. Shares of Dynavax Technologies

leveled out toward the end of trading, remaining up 6.54 percent at $3.26 as traders showed the stock some love. Interactive Intelligence Group

was also on the rise, gaining a staggering 18.63 percent to $39.03 after some very optimistic guidance for its fourth quarter 2013.

Apollo Group

was among the morning's top losers, falling 7.74 percent to $19.32 after a series of downgrades this morning. Comstock Resources

was also down, falling 9.19 percent to $13.83 after the company unveiled its $420 million capex budget. Shares of EXCO Resources

were down as well, dropping 5.84 percent to $6.45 after a senior analyst at Sanford Bernstein released a report detailing a large new supply of oil.

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.01 percent to $93.14, while gold traded down 0.37 percent to $1,656.10. Silver traded down 0.17 percent Wednesday to $30.30.

European makers were largely on the rise early this morning, lead upwards by some positive budget data. Italian shares saw the biggest gain, rising 1.09 percent with the Spanish Ibex coming in behind it at a gain of 0.61 percent.

In economic news Wednesday morning, MBA mortgage applications came in at 11.7, well above the previous figure -10.40.