An instruction to perform an operation selected from a plurality of operations configured for the instruction is executed. The executing includes determining a value of a selected operand of the instruction. The determining the value is based on a control of the instruction and includes reading the selected operand of the instruction from a selected operand location to obtain the value of the selected operand, based on the control having a first value, and using a predetermined value as the value of the selected operand, based on the control having a second value. The value and another selected operand of the instruction are multiplied to obtain a product. An arithmetic operation is performed using the product and a chosen operand of the instruction to obtain an intermediate result. A result from the intermediate result is obtained and placed in a selected location.