Mid-Afternoon Market Update: General Motors Issues More Recalls, Totals Reach 27M Autos Recalled In 2014

With minutes remaining in the trading day for Monday, the Dow traded down 0.13 percent to 16,830.49 while the NASDAQ surged 0.31 percent to 4,411.75. The S&P gained 0.03 percent to 1,961.60.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

In trading on Monday, technology shares were relative leaders, up on the day by about 0.30 percent. Top gainers in the sector included Uni-Pixel UNXL, up 11.4 percent, and ClickSoftware Technologies CKSW, up 9.2 percent.

Basic materials sector was the top decliner in today’s trading. Top losers in the sector included Rayonier RYN, down 26.6 percent, and Noranda Aluminum Holding NOR, off 2.8 percent.

Top Headline

General Motors GM was halted at 2:26 PM Eastern Time and announced 6 new recalls totaling 7.6M autos.  The data range for the recall is for vehicles from 1997 to 2014 and the company is expecting a $1.2B charge which includes the previously estimated $700M charge.  Shares sold off ~1.7 percent as trading resumed after the trading halt.

Equities Trading UP

MannKind MNKD shares shot up 9.10 percent to $10.91 following the Friday's conditional FDA approval for Afrezzaa.

Shares of ServiceSource International SREV got a boost, shooting up 3.37 percent to $5.82 after Altai Capital reported a 9.9% stake in ServiceSource.

GW Pharmaceuticals plc GWPH shares were also up, gaining 12.22 percent to $107.89 as Piper Jaffray raised the price target on the stock from $97 to $147.

Equities Trading DOWN

Shares of MBIA MBI were 3.48 percent to $11.09 as BTIG Research downgraded the stock from Buy to Neutral.

United States Steel X shares gained 0.12 percent to $26.05. Martin Marietta Materials MLM will replace U.S. Steel in the S&P 500 index after the close of trading on July 1.

Rayonier RYN was down, falling 26.83 percent to $35.52. Rayonier completed the spin-off of Rayonier Advanced Materials RYAM. Analysts at RBC Capital downgraded Rayonier from Outperform to Sector Perform.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.32 percent to $105.40, while gold traded up 0.62 percent to $1,328.20

Silver traded up 0.08 percent Monday to $21.15, while copper rose 1.17 percent to $3.20.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.01 percent, the Spanish IBEX Index dropped 0.33 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index slipped 0.17 percent. Meanwhile, the German DAX climbed 0.37 percent and the French CAC 40 tumbled 0.32 percent while UK shares declined 0.01 percent.

Economics

The Chicago PMI dropped to 62.6 in June, versus 65.5 in May. However, economists were expecting a reading of 64.3.

The pending home sales index rose 6.1% to reach 103.9 in May, up from 97.9 in April.