ECB unveils bond buying details; $21B drug deal; Apple's Achilles' heel?

Investors putting the brakes on a two-day slide. Stocks starting the day with gains after the European Central Bank unveiled details of its trillion dollar bond buying program.

ECB President Mario Draghi said bond purchases will begin March 9. The central back also raised its growth forecast to 1.5% for this year after a string of better-than-expected economic data from the eurozone.

Wall Street is getting more data on the state of the labor market ahead of Friday's jobs report. The Labor Department reports initial jobless claims rose by 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 320,000. That was more than the 300,000 economists were forcasting.

Some big M&A action in the drug industry also grabbing investors attention. AbbVie (ABBV) is buying leukemia drugmaker Pharmacyclics (PCYC ) for $21 billion in cash and stock. The deal will help AbbVie fill its medicine cabinet with more profitable cancer drugs. AbbVie walked away from its takeover of Irish based Shire (SHPG) last year after the U.S. took steps to prevent such tax deals. Pharmacyclics shares are soaring on the news while of AbbVie stock is lower.

Yahoo Finance's Senior Columnist Michael Santoli says people are going to expect more of these kind of deals. 

"The biotech sector has been raging hot market, largely because people feel if they get a blockbuster... big pharma is going to come around and buy them," Santoli points out.

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Retail earnings  continue to roll in...Costco  (COST) shares are higher after the wholesale club operator reported earnings that topped analysts' estimates, but revenue came in slightly short of forecasts. Profits jumped 29% thanks to tax benefit related to a special dividend and stronger-than-expected same-store sales. Earlier this week, the company named Citigroup  (C) a and Visa (V) as its new credit card partners, replacing American Express (AXP).

H&R Block (HRB) stock headedlower in early trading. The tax preparation firm saying that through the end of February, filings by and through the company fell more than 4 percent from last year. H&R Block also reporting a narrower than expected loss in its fiscal third quarter thanks to the IRS opening it e-file system earlier this tax season. But revenue came in below forecasts.

Apple (AAPL) is reportedly postponing production of its larger iPads, due to delays with the supply of display panels. The Wall Street Journal says  Apple is considering adding faster technology and USB ports to the iPad. There are also reports that Apple may team up with HBO. Apple TV could be one of the launch partners for HBO's new streaming service. Apparently Apple has been aggressive in courting HBO for this deal.

Santoli thinks the deal makes sense if Apple is going to be a player in the TV industry.

"But we have to obviously see how many people sign up for that kind of thing...it's obviously more expensive than Netflix (NFLX)," Santoli adds.

And Etsy is gearing up for its Wall Street debut. The online craft and vintage-good marketplace is filing a prospectus for an IPO that could be trading on the NASDAQ as early as mid-April under the ticker ETSY. Etsy is seeking to raise more than $100 million dollars from the offering.