Mid-Day Market Update: US Stocks Gain; United Natural Foods Shares Slide Following Weak Forecast

Midway through trading Monday, the Dow traded up 0.45 percent to 16,715.41 while the NASDAQ gained 0.60 percent to 4,618.00. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.47 percent to 1,957.29. Leading and Lagging Sectors On Monday, basic materials shares rose by 1.72 percent. Top gainers in the sector included Resolute Forest Products Inc RFP, Tredegar Corporation TG, and Handy & Harman Ltd HNH. In trading on Monday, healthcare shares dropped by 0.20 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Horizon Pharma PLC HZNP, down 17 percent, and BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. BCRX, down 9 percent. Top Headline Lumber Liquidators Holdings Inc LL reported a wider-than-expected loss for its fourth quarter. Lumber Liquidators said it lost $0.73 per share in the fourth quarter on revenue of $234.8 million. Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to lose $0.23 per share on revenue of $254.46 million. Lumber Liquidators noted that its quarter sales fell by 13.7 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago as comparable store sales fell 17.2 percent. The company added that it also saw its number of customers invoiced by 15.6 percent while the average sale fell 1.6 percent. Lumber Liquidators also named Dennis R. Knowles as COO. Equities Trading UP API Technologies Corp ATNY shares shot up 93 percent to $1.95 after the company agreed to be acquired by an affiliate of JF Lehman & Co for $2 per share in cash. Shares of Federal-Mogul Holdings Corp FDML got a boost, shooting up 47 percent to $7.33. Carl Icahn's Icahn Enterprises LP IEP offered to buy the remaining stock of Federal-Mogul for $7 per share in cash. Federal-Mogul reported Q4 adjusted earnings of $0.22 per share on revenue of $1.798 billion. BroadSoft Inc BSFT shares were also up, gaining 18 percent to $37.01 after the company reported stronger-than-expected results for the fourth quarter. Equities Trading DOWN Intrepid Potash, Inc. IPI shares dropped 54 percent to $1.02. Intrepid Potash reported a Q4 loss of $0.26 per share on revenue of $42.8 million. Shares of United Natural Foods, Inc. UNFI were down 24 percent to $29.91 after the company reported weak preliminary results. United Natural Foods also said that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Haddon House Food Products for $217.5 million. Horizon Pharma PLC HZNP was down, falling around 17 percent to $16.35. Horizon Pharma reported Q4 adjusted earnings of $0.63 per share on revenue of $244.5 million. Commodities In commodity news, oil traded up 2.84 percent to $33.71, while gold traded up 1.07 percent to $1,233.50. Silver traded up 0.79 percent Monday to $14.83, while copper fell 0.05 percent to $2.12. Eurozone European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 gained 0.60 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index climbed 1.15 percent, while Italy's FTSE MIB Index jumped 0.75 percent. Meanwhile, the German DAX dropped 0.43 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.65 percent, while U.K. shares rose 1.36 percent. Economics The Chicago PMI fell to 47.60 in February, versus a prior reading of 55.60. However, economists were expecting a reading of 53.00. The pending home sales index declined 2.5 percent to 106.0 in February, versus a revised reading of 108.7 in December. However, economists were projecting a rise of 0.5 percent. Data on farm prices for February will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.