Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Rises 250 Points; TRACON Pharmaceuticals Shares Plummet

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.96 percent to 26,393.30 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.32 percent to 7973.14. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.57 percent to 2,904.86.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Friday afternoon, the financial shares rose 1.9 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Qudian Inc. QD up 10 percent, and Banco Santander Mexico Sa Instcn De BSMX up 12 percent.

In trading on Friday, health care shares fell 0.7 percent.

Top Headline

JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter on Friday.

JPMorgan said it earned $2.65 per share in the first quarter on revenue of $29.1 billion versus expectations of $2.35 per share and $28.47 billion. Net income for the quarter rose from $8.712 billion in the same quarter a year ago to $9.179 billion.

By segment, Consumer & Community banking revenue rose 9 percent to $13.751 billion, Corporate & Investment Bank revenue fell 6 percent to $9.848 billion, Commercial Banking revenue rose 8 percent to $2.338 billion, Asset & Wealth Management revenue was flat at $3.489 billion, and Corporate revenue more than tripled from $127 million to $425 million.

 

Equities Trading UP

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation APC shares got a boost, shooting up 33 percent to $62.17 after Chevron Corporation CVX announced plans to acquire Anadarko Petroleum for $33 billion. As part of the merger agreement, Chevron will pay Anadarko shareholders $16.25 in cash plus 0.3869 Chevron shares for each Anadarko share held. The deal values Anadarko's stock at $65 per share and represents a premium of more than 35 percent from Thursday's closing price.

Shares of Reebonz Holding Limited RBZ shot up 120 percent to $19.01 on no new news following an offering announced on Thursday. Reebonz has been an extremely momentous stock over the last month.

Jumia Technologies AG JMIA shares were also up, gaining 52 percent to $22.07. Jumia priced its IPO at $14.50 per ADS.

Equities Trading DOWN

X4 Pharmaceuticals, Inc. XFOR shares dropped 20 percent to $12.01 after the company announced a 5.67 million share offering of shares and warrants priced at $11 per unit.

Shares of Bridgeline Digital, Inc. BLIN were down 18 percent to $0.1962 after the company announced an offering of up to 383.53 million shares of common stock.

TRACON Pharmaceuticals, Inc. TCON was down, falling around 51 percent to $0.6399 after it announced shelving of a study of a pipeline asset. TRACON, which develops novel targeted therapeutics for cancer and wet age-related macular degeneration, with the latter through its license to Santen, said it terminated a late-stage study dubbed TAPPAS, of TRC105 in combination with Votrient in patients with advanced or metastatic angiosarcoma. The decision to terminate the study was due to futility, based on the recommendation by the Independent Data Monitoring Committee, which had reviewed the interim unblinded safety and efficacy data. The trial had enrolled 120 patients.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1 percent to $64.21 while gold traded up 0.2 percent to $1,295.20.

Silver traded up 0.7 percent Friday to $14.97ro, while copper rose 2.1 percent to $2.9475.

 

Eurozone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.16 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.24 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.8 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 0.54 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.31 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.26 percent.

Economics

The import price index rose 0.6 percent in March, versus a revised 1 percent increase in February. Export prices rose 0.7 percent last month.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index declined to 96.9 in April, versus a reading of 98.4 in the prior month.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs rose by 2 to 833 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.