Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Apple Rises Sharply On Icahn Stake, NASDAQ Pulled Upward

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.32 percent to 15,468.26 while the NASDAQ surged 0.32 percent to 3,668.57. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.39 percent to 1,696.17.

Top Headline
Late in the afternoon, billionaire investor and head of Icahn Enterprises IEP Carl Icahn announced his fund had a sizable long position in Apple AAPL. The news sent Apple shares spiking, gaining roughly 4 percent in seconds. Icahn's position, which Bloomberg reported to be over a billion dollars, was built up over the last month, and has given shares some new life.

Equities Trading UP
Avanir Pharmaceuticals AVNR shot up 3.22 percent to $4.64 after the company announced an agreement with Merck & Co MRK to co-promote Merck's type 2 diabetes therapies.

Shares of Goodrich Petroleum GDP were up as well, gaining 11.06 percent to $21.69 after Wells Fargo reported it expects a TMS joint venture from the company.

Osiris Therapeutics OSIR was also up, gaining 125.61 percent to $24.05 after the company reported strong efficacy for Grafix to treat diabetic foot ulcers.

Equities Trading DOWN
Shares of Orbitz Worldwide OWW were down 13.03 percent to $10.21 after the company reported that PAR Capital Management has sold 8.1 million of its 24.6 million shares of Orbitz Worldwide stock.

Valspar VAL shares tumbled 6.51 percent to $66.16 after the company reported downbeat Q3 results.

InterOil IOC was down, falling 10.75 percent to $74.95 after the company reported wider-than-expected Q2 loss.

Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 0.46 percent to $106.60, while gold traded down 0.87 percent to $1,322.60. Silver traded up 0.31 percent Tuesday to $21.47, while copper rose 1.15 percent to $3.31.

Eurozone
European shares were higher on upbeat ZEW survey. The Spanish Ibex Index gained 0.47 percent and the Italian FTSE MIB Index rose 0.68 percent. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 0.68 percent and the French CAC 40 rose 0.51 percent while U.K. shares gained 0.57 percent.

Economics
The NFIB small-business optimism index gained 0.6 points to 94.1 in July. The ICSC/Goldman Sachs Retail Chain Store Sales Index dropped 0.2 percent in the latest week ended Saturday versus the previous week. US retail sales rose 0.2 percent in July, versus economists' expectations for a 0.3 percent increase. US imports increased 0.2 percent in July, versus economists' estimates of a 0.8 percent rise. The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index rose 3.7 percent y/y in the first week of August. US business inventories came in flat in June. However, economists were expecting inventories to increase 0.2 percent in June.