Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Abercrombie & Fitch Slides On Disappointing Results; Minerva Neurosciences Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.07 percent to 17,838.43 while the NASDAQ gained 0.21 percent to 4,905.10. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.08 percent to 2,092.23. Leading and Lagging Sectors Utilities shares gained by 0.68 percent in trading on Thursday. Top gainers in the sector included Pampa Energia S.A. (ADR) PAM, Empresa Distribuidora y Cmrz Nrt SA(ADR) EDN, and Consolidated Water Co. Ltd. CWCO. In trading on Thursday, basic materials shares slipped by 0.61 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Valhi, Inc. VHI, down 13 percent, and LSB Industries, Inc. LXU, down 7 percent. Top Headline Dollar General Corp. DG reported upbeat profit for the first quarter on Thursday. Dollar General said it earned $1.03 per share in the first quarter on revenue of $5.27 billion. Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to earn $0.95 per share on revenue of $5.27 billion. Equities Trading UP Minerva Neurosciences Inc NERV shares shot up 194 percent to $10.39 after the company revealed positive top line results from a prospective Phase IIb, 12-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled parallel clinical study evaluating the efficacy, safety and tolerability of MIN-101 in patients with negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Shares of Barrett Business Services, Inc. BBSI got a boost, shooting up 27 percent to $37.01. Barrett Business Services reported Q4 earnings of $1.55 per share on adjusted sales of $1.1 billion. Dollar Tree, Inc. DLTR shares were also up, gaining 13 percent to $88.39 as the company reported better-than-expected Q1 earnings and raised its FY16 guidance. Equities Trading DOWN Tidewater Inc. TDW shares dropped 34 percent to $4.05. Tidewater posted Q4 GAAP loss of $1.74 per share on revenue of $184.2 million. Shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc IONS were down 40 percent to $21.30 after the company issued an update on the IONIS-TTR program. The company is evaluating IONIS-TTRRx in an ongoing Phase 3 study currently, NEURO-TTR, in patients with transthyretin (TTR) familial amyloid polyneuropathy. According to Ionis, GSK, which has an option to license IONIS-TTRx, has decided not to initiate the stage three outcome study, CARDIO-TTR that was planned to assess IONIS-TTRx in patients with TTR armyloid cardiomyopthy. Abercrombie & Fitch Co. ANF was down, falling around 18 percent to $20.52 as the company reported a wider-than-expected Q1 loss. The company also missed analysts' sales estimates. Commodities In commodity news, oil traded up 0.20 percent to $49.66 while gold traded down 0.29 percent to $1,223.00. Silver traded up 0.58 percent Thursday to $16.36, while copper rose 0.14 percent to $2.10. Eurozone European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 gained 0.10 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.50 percent, while Italy's FTSE MIB Index gained 0.09 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 0.66 percent, and the French CAC 40 gained 0.69 percent, while U.K. shares rose 0.04 percent. Economics U.S. durable goods orders rose 3.40 percent for April, versus economists' expectations for a 0.50 percent growth. Initial jobless claims declined 10,000 to 268,000 in the recent week. However, economists were expecting claims to drop to 275,000 in the week. The pending home sales index rose 5.1 percent to 116.3 in April. Supplies of natural gas increased 71 billion cubic feet for the week ended May 20, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. However, analysts were projecting a gain of 68 billion cubic feet.