Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Macy's Profit Beats Views

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded down 1.04 percent to 25,036.19 while the NASDAQ declined 1.33 percent to 7,766.30. The S&P also fell, dropping 1.04 percent to 2,810.37.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Wednesday morning, the utilities shares rose 0.76 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included TerraForm Power, Inc. TERP up 4 percent, and Pattern Energy Group Inc. PEGI up 2 percent.

In trading on Wednesday, energy shares fell 2.25 percent.

Top Headline

Macy's M reported better-than-expected results for its second quarter.

Earnings came in at $0.70 per share, beating estimates of $0.50 per share. Sales came in at $5.572 billion, beating estimates of $5.55 billion. Macy's expects FY18 adjusted earnings of $3.95 to $4.15 per share and total sales to be flat to up 0.7 percent year-over-year.

Equities Trading UP

LM Funding America Inc LMFA shares shot up 45 percent to $0.56 after the nano-cap low-float financial services company said it saw a positive net income after $400,000 in accrued expenses were reversed as part of a revised settlement for the Solaris class action litigation.

Shares of Staffing 360 Solutions Inc STAF got a boost, shooting up 16 percent to $2.74 following Q2 results. Staffing 360 Solutions reported Q2 loss of $0.46 per share on sales of $59.727 million.

Pain Therapeutics, Inc. PTIE shares were also up, gaining 42 percent to $1.58 after the company was awarded a $3.2 million grant to support its clinical study for Alzheimer's treatment.

Equities Trading DOWN

Hollysys Automation Technologies Ltd HOLI shares dropped 26 percent to $17.39 after reporting downbeat quarterly earnings.

Shares of Casa Systems Inc CASA were down 26 percent to $11.53 after reporting a Q2 sales miss.

ParkerVision, Inc. PRKR was down, falling around 29 percent to $0.41 after the company missed Q2 sales estimates.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1 percent to $66.37 while gold traded down 0.63 percent to $1,193.10.

Silver traded down 1.71 percent Wednesday to $14.795, while copper fell 2.59 to $2.6125.

Eurozone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 0.97 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.34 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 0.30 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX fell 0.97 percent, and the French CAC 40 fell 1.15 percent while U.K. shares fell 1.13 percent.

Economics

U.S. retail sales rose 0.5 percent for July, beating market expectations for a 0.1 percent increase.

The NYSE: Empire State manufacturing index increased 3 points to a reading of 25.6 in August. However, economists were projecting a reading of 20.

U.S. nonfarm productivity rose to a 2.9 percent annual pace for the second quarter.

U.S. industrial production gained 0.1 percent for July.

The NAHB housing market index declined one point to a reading of 67 in August.

U.S. business inventories increased 0.1 percent for June, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.2 percent gain.

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 Treasury International Capital report for June will be released at 4:00 p.m. ET.