On the upside

According to informed sources, Axsys Technologies (Nasdaq: AXYS) is selling itself through an auction and received a first round of bids yesterday.

Shares of Citigroup (NYSE: C) continued to climb after announcing yesterday that it was profitable for the first two months of the year.

EBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) expects its payment services business PayPal to double over the next three year.

On the downside

Piper Jaffray analyst Michael E. Cox lowered his full year earnings estimates for 2009 and 2010 for NCI Building Systems (NYSE: NCS) after the company warned that it may violate terms of its loan agreements.

Shares of pharmacy benefits manager McKesson (NYSE: MCK) plummeted over fears that Rite Aid may default on its loans.

LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) swung to a loss for the fourth quarter as a result of inventory write-downs and forecast first quarter earnings well below analyst estimates.

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of 3 to 2 on the NYSE while advancers barely edged out decliners by a slim margin on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks eased a point to 366.