Mid-Day Market Update: Skechers Rises On Upbeat Earnings; Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Shares Slide

Midway through trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.65 percent to 25,544.36 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.91 percent to 7,552.85. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.78 percent to 2,790.31.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

On Friday, the consumer staples shares climbed by 2.1 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Procter & Gamble Co PG up 8 percent, and WD-40 Company WDFC up 6 percent.

In trading on Friday, materials shares slipped 0.02 percent.

Top Headline

Procter & Gamble Co PG reported upbeat earnings for its first quarter.

P&G posted quarterly earnings of $1.12 per share on revenue of $16.69 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $1.10 per share on sales of $16.51 billion. P&G reaffirmed its FY19 organic sales growth guidance of 2 percent to 3 percent year over year.

Equities Trading UP

Skechers U.S.A., Inc. SKX shares shot up 15 percent to $30.03 after the company reported upbeat earnings for its third quarter and issued a strong outlook for the fourth quarter.

Shares of The9 Limited NCTY got a boost, shooting up 176 percent to $4.3624. Jie Qin reported a 7.4 percent stake in The9 Ltd as of Sept 4.

Planet Green Holdings Corp. PLAG shares were also up, gaining 331 percent to $11.51. Planet Green Form 4 filings from Thursday afternoon showed open market purchases of 1.176 million shares of common stock by 2 executives, CEO, Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer.

Equities Trading DOWN

ServiceSource International, Inc. SREV shares dropped 46 percent to $1.4081 after the company lowered its sales forecast and disclosed that its CFO Robert Pinkerton will leave the company.

Shares of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. MACK were down 34 percent to $3.42. Merrimack, which focuses on therapies for biomarker-defined cancer, said it has terminated a study dubbed SHERLOC, which evaluated its MM-121 in combination with docetaxel in patients with heregulin-positive non-small cell lung cancer, or NSCLC. Docetaxel is a chemotherapy medication used to treat several cancers, including breast cancer, head and neck cancer, prostate cancer and NSCLC. The decision was made after the Independent Data Safety Monitoring Board that evaluated the data from the Phase 2 trial found that the addition of MM-121 to docetaxel did not improve progression-free survival over docetaxel alone in the patient population.

PC Connection, Inc. CNXN was down, falling around 25 percent to $28.27. Connection expects Q3 revenue in the range of $657 million to $659 million and earnings per share between $0.49 and $0.51.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.35 percent to $69.58 while gold traded up 0.05 percent to $1,230.70.

Silver traded up 0.45 percent Friday to $14.67, while copper rose 0.80 to $2.7685.

Eurozone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.05 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.20 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.19 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX dropped 0.23 percent, and the French CAC 40 declined 0.36 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.51 percent.

Economics

U.S. existing home sales declined 3.4 percent at an annual rate of 5.15 million for September. However, economists were expecting a 5.34 million rate.

Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan will speak in New York, New York at 12:45 p.m. ET.

The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the recent week is schedule for release at 1:00 p.m. ET.