Afternoon Market Update

Shares of 3Par Inc PAR continued their upward movement after Hewlett-Packard HPQ decided to bid for PAR at $24 per share, just days after Dell DELL decided to offer $18 per share for the company. Several analysts are expecting Dell to make a counter offer for PAR. PAR’s shares rose about 2%. Treasurys moved up today to push the yields down, after a realtor association estimated a decline of 27.2% in the sales of existing US homes in July, which is their biggest 1-month drop ever. The price of benchmark 10-year Treasurys rose to send their yields 13 basis points lower to 2.476%. Gold futures have narrowed their losses today after the US stocks moved down and the dollar weakened. Gold for December delivery fell 0.1% to $1,227.40 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). Gold had reached an intraday low of $1,211.70 earlier. Scott Meyers, a senior trading analyst with Pioneer Futures, a division of MF Global said, "We've turned around, considerably." Read more from Benzinga's Markets.