The markets traded near the flatline as pending home sales dropped. The Dow slipped 4 points to 12,823 while Nasdaq added 3 points to 2503.

On the upside

Isis Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ISIS) entered a partnership with Genzyme (Nasdaq: GENZ) to jointly develop the cholesterol drug mipomersen.

Leap Wireless International (Nasdaq: LEAP) reduced the number of customers discontinuing their service by a full percentage point and added a greater than expected number of new clients in the fourth quarter.

King Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: KG) ended its patent infringement suit against CorePharma and agreed to grant CorePharma certain rights to develop a generic version of King's muscle relaxant treatment Skelaxin.

On the downside

Although Centennial Communications (Nasdaq: CYCL) swung to a profit for the second quarter, the results fell short of expectations.

A New York Times article reported that Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC) fabricated documents in at least 300 bankruptcy cases prompting Lehman Bros. analyst Bruce Harting to lower his earnings expectations for the mortgage lender.

Shares of mortgage bond insurer AMBAC Financial Group (NYSE: ABK) plunged as pending home sales dropped.

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 10 to 9 on the NYSE while decliners edged out advancers by the more than 10 to 9 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks lost 4 points to 720.