Despite a drop oil prices, the market fell during the midday with the Dow tumbling 97 points to 12,188. Nadsaq dropped 28 points to 2272.

On the upside

The U. K. Ministry of Defense ordered an additional 174 Cougar Mastiff vehicles from Force Protection (Nasdaq: FRPT) for approximately $115 million.

Imperium Partners Group will take ESS Technology (Nasdaq: ESST) private in a deal valued at approximately $58.3 million.

While a restructuring charge weighed down fourth quarter earnings for Navigant Consulting (NYSE: NCI), revenue climbed.

On the downside

Syntax-Brillian (Nasdaq: BRLC) amended the terms of its credit pact.

Piper Jaffray analyst Mark D. Churchill downgraded United Natural Foods (Nasdaq: UNFI) after the reported lower second quarter earnings and slashed its outlook for the year.

Life Time Fitness (NYSE: LTM) warned that 2008 results will fall short of expectations.

In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of nearly 2 to 1 on the NYSE and by more than 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks fell 8 points to 688.