Benzinga Mid-Day Market Update

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.81 percent to 13,202.94 while the NASDAQ rose 1.31 percent to 3,016.29. The S&P also rose, increasing 0.97 percent to 1,425.81.

Advance Auto Parts

announced a little before 3:00pm Thursday that it had hired Blackstone to explore a sale of the company. This lead to a 15.2 percent spike in its share price, and a nice boost to competitors Autozone

, Pep Boys

, and O'Reilly Automotive

. Stay tuned to Benzinga for more updates as soon as they're available.

JDA Software

consolidated its gain towards the end of trading, remaining up 17.40 percent at $44.79 Thursday after the company announced a $1.9 billion going private deal midway through the morning. Radian Group

continued to gain slightly, up 14.93 percent to $5.39 after the company reported a major EPS and revenue beat Thursday morning. Shares Heartland Payment Systems

traced back some of their gains, remaining up 9.20 percent to $28.48 after posting an earnings beat Thursday morning

Cirrus Logic

recovered slightly, remaining down 11.35 percent at $36.15 following a downgrade at Feltl and Company. ABIOMED

slowed its fall, down 30.37 percent to $13.80 despite an earnings beat and a reaffirmation of its fiscal year guidance. Zumiez

remained down 16.47 percent at $21.15 after a downgrade at Piper Jaffray.

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.92 percent to $88.63, while gold traded down 0.13 percent to $1,716.80. Silver traded down 0.06 percent Thursday to $32.25.

In the eurozone, the British manufacturing PMI came in at 47.5, below the estimated 48.1 and the prior figure of 48.4. Markets were down across the board as more uncertainty about the finances of Greece and Spain continued. Germany's Angela Merkel made another statement underlining her country's interest in seeking a budget compromise, highlighting Ireland as an example of what financial reforms are capable of. The Irish government also released a statement Thursday morning, slashing its GDP growth guidance from 2.2 percent to 1.4 percent.

A big day of economic news, with reports that were delayed earlier in the week starting to come in. First off, ADP non-farm payrolls, an indicator of what we might see in tomorrow's unemployment release, was reported at 158 thousand, above the expected 131 thousand, and well above the prior report of 88.2 thousand. The US Markit PMI came in at 51.0, slightly below economists' estimates and the prior figure of 51.3. The CB consumer confidence came in at 72.2, slightly below the expected 72.5, but above the prior figure of 70.3. ISM manufacturing prices were also reported, coming in at 55.0, below the 56.5 estimate and the previous report of 58.0. The ISM manufacturing index was reported at 51.7, above the expected 51.2 and the last release of 51.5. Construction spending month over month was reported at 0.6 percent, just below the 0.7 percent estimate, and well above the prior report of -0.1 percent.