Mid-Day Market Update: Craft Brew Alliance Surges Following Takeover By Anheuser-Busch; Solid Biosciences Shares Fall

Midway through trading Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.20% to 27745.99 while the NASDAQ rose 0.49% to 8,505.80. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.44% to 3,100.60.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares climbed 0.9% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Amarin Corporation plc AMRN, up 20%, and Covetrus, Inc. CVET, up 24%.

In trading on Tuesday, consumer staples shares fell 0.1%.

Top Headline

D.R. Horton, Inc. DHI reported better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

D.R. Horton reported quarterly earnings of $1.35 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $1.25 per share. Its sales came in at $5.04 billion, versus expectations of $4.86 billion.

D.R. Horton raised its quarterly dividend from $0.15 to $0.175 per share. The company said it expects FY20 sales of $18.5 billion to $19.0 billion, versus estimates of $18.58 billion. It projects 2020 home sales to be between 60,000 and 61,000 homes.

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Equities Trading UP

Craft Brew Alliance, Inc. BREW shares shot up 122% to $16.25 after Anheuser-Busch BUD agreed to purchase the remaining shares of the company it does not already own in a merger transaction for $16.50 per share in cash.

Shares of Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. APDN got a boost, shooting up 174% to $12.06 after the company announced successful DNA tagging of leather at an Asia-based tannery.

Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc. LTS shares were also up, gaining 24% to $3.4750 after the company agreed to be acquired by Advisor Group for $3.50 per share in cash.

Equities Trading DOWN

Solid Biosciences Inc. SLDB shares tumbled 68% to $3.53 after the company said its lead gene therapy candidate to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy has been placed on clinical hold by the FDA yet again. Solid Biosciences said it has been notified by the FDA that the IGNITE DMD Phase 1/2 study of SGT-001 has been placed on clinical hold.

Shares of Diplomat Pharmacy, Inc. DPLO were down 58% to $2.6050 after reporting downbeat Q3 earnings.

Fluent, Inc. FLNT was down, falling 31% to $1.7501 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 EPS and sales results. The company also cut FY19 sales guidance below analyst estimates.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 0.9% to $57.38, while gold traded down 0.7% to $1,447.30.

Silver traded down 0.9% Tuesday to $16.65, while copper fell 0.5% to $2.6515.

Euro zone


European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.51%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.69%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 1.4%. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 0.7%, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.56% while UK shares rose 0.82%.

Economics

The NFIB small business optimism index increased 0.6 points to a reading of 102.4 in October.

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index rose 0.1% during the first week of November versus October.

Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Patrick Harker is set to speak in New York at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari will speak in Madison, Wisconsin at 6:00 p.m. ET.