Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Twitter Beats Q1 Expectations

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded down 0.56 percent to 23,888.78 while the NASDAQ declined 0.67 percent to 6,960.56. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.66 percent to 2,617.29.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Wednesday morning, the consumer staples shares fell by just 0.2 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included SUPERVALU Inc. SVU, up 4 percent, and Imperial Brands PLC IMBBY, up 2 percent.

In trading on Wednesday, industrial shares tumbled 1 percent.

Top Headline

Twitter Inc TWTR reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter.

The social media company earned 16 cents per share in the first quarter on revenue of $664.87 million versus expectations of 11 cents per share and $605.26 million.

Advertising revenue rose 21 percent to $575 million, data licensing and other revenue rose 20 percent to $90 million. Monthly active users rose from 330 million in the fourth quarter to 336 million.

Equities Trading UP

Vicor Corporation VICR shares shot up 17 percent to $34.30. Vicor posted Q1 earnings of $0.10 per share on sales of $65.2 million.

Shares of Check-Cap Ltd. CHEK got a boost, shooting up 105 percent to $14.87 after climbing 104.82 percent on Tuesday.

Six Flags Entertainment Corporation SIX shares were also up, gaining 10 percent to $65.25 as the company posted a narrower-than-expected loss for its first quarter.

Equities Trading DOWN

trivago N.V. TRVG shares dropped 18 percent to $5.23 after reporting Q1 results.

Shares of Mercury Systems, Inc. MRCY were down 19 percent to $34.7483 as the company posted downbeat Q3 results.

HFF, Inc. HF was down, falling around 13 percent to $40.90 following weaker-than-expected quarterly results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.46 percent to $67.39 while gold traded down 0.90 percent to $1,321.00.

Silver traded down 1.32 percent Wednesday to $16.565, while copper fell 0.05 percent to $3.1625.

Eurozone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.87 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.66 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dipped 1.08 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX fell 1.26 percent, and the French CAC 40 declined 0.62 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.84 percent.

Economics

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on petroleum inventories in the U.S. will be released at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 5-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.