Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Higher; Lowe's Posts Mixed Q4 Results

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.81% to 27301.35 while the NASDAQ rose 1.04% to 9058.97. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.84% to 3154.38.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares climbed 1.3% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Opera Limited OPRA, up 11%, and Plantronics, Inc. PLT, up 7%.

In trading on Wednesday, real estate shares fell 0.1%.

Top Headline

Lowe's Companies, Inc. LOW reported stronger-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter, while sales missed views. The company also issued weak earnings outlook for FY20.

Lowe's reported quarterly earnings of $0.94 per share, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $0.91. The company reported quarterly sales of $16.03 billion, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $16.17 billion.

Lowe's said it expects FY20 adjusted earnings of $6.45 to $6.65 per share, versus analysts’ estimates of $6.67 per share.

Equities Trading UP

SELLAS Life Sciences Group, Inc. SLS shares shot up 44% to $2.97 after the company reported follow-up Phase 1/2 clinical data for Galinpepimut-S in acute myeloid leukemia.

Shares of Tarena International, Inc. TEDU got a boost, shooting 40% to $3.95 after gaining 19.5% on Tuesday.

Novavax, Inc. NVAX shares were also up, gaining 31% to $10.36 after the company highlighted progress in efforts to develop novel vaccine to protect against coronavirus.

Equities Trading DOWN

Spherix Incorporated SPEX shares tumbled 30% to $1.72 after climbing around 137% on Tuesday.

Shares of SmileDirectClub, Inc. SDC were down 27% to $8.24 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 results. Jefferies downgraded SmileDirectClub from Buy to Hold and lowered the price target from $22 to $10.

Menlo Therapeutics Inc. MNLO was down, falling 23% to $3.37. Menlo Therapeutics said its Phase 2 study of serlopitant for the treatment of chronic pruritus of unknown origin did not meet the primary endpoint of showing a statistically significant reduction in pruritus in patients treated with serlopitant compared to placebo based upon a 4-point improvement responder analysis.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 1.2% to $49.31, while gold traded down 0.3% to $1,645.10.

Silver traded down 1.2% Wednesday to $17.975, while copper fell 0.9% to $2.5545.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 1.1% the Spanish Ibex Index declined 0.1%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.4% Meanwhile, the German DAX dropped 0.9%, and the French CAC 40 fell 0.7% while UK shares fell 0.7%.

Economics

New home sales rose 7.9% to an annual rate of 764,000 in January.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on petroleum inventories in the U.S. will be released at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The business expectations and uncertainty indexes for February will be released at 11:00 a.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari will speak at 1:00 p.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 5-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.