Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Up 175 Points; Pulmatrix Shares Plunge

Toward the end of trading Monday, the Dow traded up 0.76 percent to 23,237.86 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.4 percent to 6,610.87. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.41 percent to 2,496.04.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Monday afternoon, the health care shares rose by 1.1 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Inflarx NV IFRX up 13 percent, and Molecular Templates, Inc. MTEM up 15 percent.

In trading on Monday, real estate shares fell 0.5 percent.

Top Headline

Verizon Communications Inc. VZ and Walt Disney Co DIS over the weekend announced a "broad-based distribution agreement" that puts an end to a programming fee dispute.

Verizon and Disney reached an agreement that puts an end to months of talks to keep Disney's properties and channels on the Fios platform. Verizon told customers in an e-mail prior to Sunday's agreement that Disney is asking for "hundreds of millions of dollars more for its programming" despite many of its channels experiencing "declining viewership," CNN reported. Verizon also said in the e-mail it was "standing up to networks like Disney, refusing to accept these huge increases."

Equities Trading UP

vTv Therapeutics Inc. VTVT shares got a boost, shooting up 15 percent to $2.62 after closing up 120 percent last Friday after the company exercised its right to have MacAndrews & Forbes Group purchase 815k shares at $1.84 per share.

Shares of Safe-T Group Ltd SFET shot up 13 percent to $3.11 after the company received an order from the largest Israeli beverage company for its SDA and SDE solutions.

Arcimoto, Inc. FUV shares were also up, gaining 12 percent to $2.6895. Arcimoto shares gained Friday after the company secured $4.5 million in financing to initiate production of its electric vehicle model.

Equities Trading DOWN

American Midstream Partners, LP AMID shares dropped 30 percent to $3.0250 after an 8-K showed an amendment to credit deal, where the company will no longer be permitted to declare, pay any cash distribution until its consolidated total leverage ratio is reduced to less than 5:1.

Shares of Pulmatrix, Inc. PULM were down 18 percent to $0.25 after the company announced a $25 million common unit offering.

Bridgeline Digital, Inc. BLIN was down, falling around 18 percent to $0.2334. Bridgeline Digital reported a Q4 loss of $0.13 per share, versus a year-ago loss of $0.02 per share. Its sales declined to $2.8 million from $4.1 million.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.11 percent to $45.38 while gold traded down 0.05 percent to $1,282.30.

Silver traded up 0.41 percent Monday to $15.50, while copper fell 1.7 percent to $2.636.

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 climbed 0.42 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index gained 0.54 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index jumped 1.44 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 1.71 percent, and the French CAC 40 climbed 1.11 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.09 percent.

Economics

The Dallas Fed manufacturing index declined 23 points to a reading of -5.1 for December. However, economists were expecting a reading of 17.6.