Mid-Day Market Update: SolarCity Wins Big, SunPower Continues its Fall

Following the market opening Monday, the Dow traded down 0.59 percent to 13,355.80 while the NASDAQ fell 0.38 percent to 3,089.47. The S&P also fell, decreasing 0.61 percent to 1,457.25.

The banks were handed some good news Monday as international regulators agreed to hold off on the new Basel III rules for another year. This gives the banks more time to reach the target liquidity ratios, and sent the group higher in early trading.

Nationstar Mortgage

saw a solid boost in early trading Monday, rising 12.73 percent to $37.46 following the company's announcement that it will buy $215 billion in residential mortgage servicing rights from Bank of America. Shares of VIVUS

were also up, gaining 8.15 percent to $14.87 after the company announced its obesity pill prescriptions had jumped 68 percent. SolarCity

continued last week's rally Monday, rising 11.49 percent to $16.05 as the company received a series of favorable ratings from analysts.

Ilumina

fell 7.93 percent to $50.42 in early trading after a report that buyout talks had failed surfaced. Achillion Pharmaceuticals

also took a hit, dropping 9.52 percent to $8.55 after the company announced interim results for a pilot phase 2 test of its drug ACH-3102. Shares of SunPower

were down as well, falling 11.11 percent to $7.76 as the company continued to give back some of its gains from last week.

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.11 percent to $92.99, while gold traded down 0.21 percent to $1,645.40. Silver traded up 0.06 percent Monday to $30.01.

In the Euro zone this morning, markets were largely down as investors feared the ECB would not engage in enough stimulus action later this week.

Global semiconductor sales were released today, showing an increase of 2.0 percent, greater than the prior figure of 1.7 percent.