Mid-Day Market Update: GNC Falls After Weak Q3 Results; Ocwen Financial Shares Surge

Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.24 percent to 18,243.20 while the NASDAQ declined 0.11 percent to 5,244.36. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.09 percent to 2,141.42.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

On Thursday, healthcare shares gained by 0.81 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Psychemedics Corp. PMD, and LeMaitre Vascular Inc LMAT.

In trading on Thursday, utilities shares fell by 0.58 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included UGI Corp UGI, down 2 percent, and Alliant Energy Corporation LNT, down 1 percent.

Top Headline

Twitter Inc TWTR reported stronger-than-expected results for its third quarter.

Twitter earned $0.13 per share on revenue of $616 million. Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to earn $0.09 per share on revenue of $605.8 million.

Total monthly active users (MAU) rose from 313 million in the second quarter to 317 million in the third quarter. Average U.S. MAUs rose from 66 million in the prior quarter to 67 million while average international MAUs rose from 247 million in the prior quarter to 250 million.

The company announced a restructuring and reduction in its workforce which will affect approximately 9 percent of its total global headcount.

Equities Trading UP

Ocwen Financial Corp OCN shares shot up 24 percent to $4.38. Ocwen Financial reported Q3 earnings of $0.08 per share on revenue of $359.448 million.

Shares of PCM Inc PCMI got a boost, shooting up 25 percent to $23.24 after the company posted upbeat Q3 results and issued a strong FY16 forecast.

TTM Technologies, Inc. TTMI shares were also up, gaining 17 percent to $13.34 after the company posted better-than-expected Q3 earnings.

Equities Trading DOWN

Community Health Systems CYH shares dropped 44 percent to $5.65. Community Health Systems projects Q3 net operating revenue of $4.380 billion and loss from continuing operations before income taxes of around $(83) million. Baird downgrades Community Health from Neutral to Underperform.

Shares of Rewalk Robotics Ltd RWLK were down 27 percent to $3.25. ReWalk Robotics announced an offering of ordinary shares and warrants and reported preliminary Q3 sales of 1.4 million.

GNC Holdings Inc GNC was down, falling around 20 percent to $16.23 after the company posted downbeat quarterly results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.28 percent to $49.81 while gold traded up 0.29 percent to $1,270.30.

Silver traded up 0.02 percent Thursday to $17.63, while copper rose 0.86 percent to $2.16.

Eurozone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 slipped 0.01 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.26 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.84 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 0.07 percent, and the French CAC 40 dropped 0.02 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.41 percent.

Economics

Initial jobless claims declined 3,000 to 258,000 last week. However, economists were expecting claims to reach 255,000 in the week.

U.S. durable-goods orders declined 0.10 percent for September, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.10 percent growth

The pending home sales index gained 1.5 percent to 110.0 for September. Economists were projecting a growth of 1.2 percent for the month.

Supplies of natural gas increased 73 billion cubic feet for the week ended October 21, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts projected a gain of 73 billion cubic foot.

The Treasury will auction 7-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Data on money supply for the latest week will be released at 4:30 p.m. ET.