Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Qurate Retail Falls After Q1 Results; Genetic Technologies Shares Surge

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded down 0.05 percent to 25,815.43 while the NASDAQ declined 0.45 percent to 7,874.87. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.15 percent to 2,866.45.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Friday afternoon, the materials shares rose by 0.9 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. NAK up 15 percent, and Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. MPVD up 6 percent.

In trading on Friday, health care shares fell 0.6 percent.

Top Headline

Marriott International Inc MAR reported upbeat earnings for its first quarter, while sales missed views.

Earnings came in at $1.41 per share, beating estimates of $1.34 per share. Sales came in at $5.012 billion, versus estimates of $5.11 billion.

Marriott expects Q2 earnings of $1.52 to $1.58 per share and gross fee sales of $990 million to $1.01 billion. The company projects FY19 earnings of $5.97 to $6.19 per share on gross fee sales of $3.845 billion to $3.925 billion.

 

Equities Trading UP

Genetic Technologies Limited GENE shares got a boost, shooting up 65 percent to $1.1650 after the company announced the successful completion of two new groundbreaking genetic risk tests for colorectal cancer and breast cancer.

Shares of Jiayin Group Inc JFIN shot up 43 percent to $15.00. Jiayin Group priced its 3.5 million ADS IPO at $10.50 per ADS.

Buckeye Partners, L.P. BPL shares were also up, gaining 28 percent to $41.78 after the company announced it will be acquired by IFM Investors for $41.50 per unit.

Equities Trading DOWN

Puma Biotechnology Inc PBYI shares dropped 37 percent to $18.82 after the company reported Q1 Nerlynx sales decline from last quarter due to an increase in patients discontinuing treatment. Cantor Fitzgerald downgraded Puma Biotechnology from Overweight to Neutral and lowered the price target from $57 to $20.

Shares of Transenterix Inc TRXC were down 36 percent to $1.35 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q1 EPS and sales results.

Qurate Retail Inc QRTEA was down, falling around 30 percent to $11.69 after the company reported Q1 EPS and sales down from last year. Qurate Retail posted Q1 adjusted earnings of $0.35 per share on sales of $3.085 billion.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.2 percent to $61.80 while gold traded up 0.2 percent to $1,287.70.

Silver traded up 0.2 percent Friday to $14.805, while copper rose 0.3 percent to $2.78.

 

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.32 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.25 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.28 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 0.72 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.27 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.06 percent.

Economics

The Consumer Price Index rose 0.3 percent for April, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.4 percent increase.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs slipped by 2 to 805 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.

The U.S. federal government posted a budget surplus of $160 billion for April, the Treasury Department reported. However, analysts were projecting a surplus of $165 billion.