Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Fastenal Posts In-Line Earnings

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded down 0.61 percent to 24,260.31 while the NASDAQ declined 0.24 percent to 7,077.16. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.37 percent to 2,647.17.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Wednesday morning, the real estate shares climbed 0.58 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc. MLP, up 3 percent, and CBL & Associates Properties, Inc CBL, up 2 percent.

In trading on Wednesday, financial shares fell 0.78 percent.

Top Headline

Fastenal Company FAST reported in-line results for its first quarter on Wednesday.

Fastenal reported Q1 earnings of $0.61 per share on revenue of $1.19 billion. Analysts expected earnings of $0.61 per share on sales of $1.19 billion.

Equities Trading UP

VirnetX Holding Corp VHC shares shot up 16 percent to $4.75 after the a federal jury ruled Apple must pay $502.6 million to VirnetX, according to Bloomberg.

Shares of AeroVironment, Inc. AVAV got a boost, shooting up 17 percent to $54.09. Stifel Nicolaus upgraded AeroVironment from Hold to Buy.

CymaBay Therapeutics, Inc. CBAY shares were also up, gaining 22 percent to $14.785 after the company disclosed 'positive' new 12-week and 26-week results from its ongoing Phase 2 study of seladelpar in patients with primary biliary cholangitis at the International Liver Congress 2018.

Equities Trading DOWN

Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. BW shares dropped 35 percent to $2.4301 after the company amended rights offering. The company increased size to $248 million and lowered per share subscription price from $3 to $2.

Shares of Intec Pharma Ltd. NTEC were down 18 percent to $5.25. Intec Pharma priced its 6.75 million share offering at $5.25 per share for gross proceeds of $35.4 million.

Analogic Corporation ALOG was down, falling around 13 percent to $83.10 after the company agreed to be acquired by Altaris Capital Affiliate for $84 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.04 percent to $66.19 while gold traded up 0.93 percent to $1,358.40.

Silver traded up 0.42 percent Wednesday to $16.665, while copper rose 0.19 percent to $3.143.

Eurozone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 tumbled 0.76 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.39 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 0.84 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX dropped 1.01 percent, and the French CAC 40 fell 0.72 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.13 percent.

Economics

The MBA's index of mortgage application activity declined 1.8 percent for the latest week.

The Consumer Price Index fell 0.1 percent for March.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on petroleum inventories in the U.S. is schedule for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Federal Open Market Committee will issue minutes of its latest meeting at 2:00 p.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 10-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.

The Treasury budget report for March is schedule for release at 2:00 p.m. ET.