Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Coca-Cola Sales Top Estimates

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded down 0.23% to 26963.74 while the NASDAQ fell 0.20% to 8140.20. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.11% to 2994.56.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed 0.4% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Borr Drilling Limited BORR, up 8%, and Apache Corporation APA, up 5%.

In trading on Friday, utilities shares fell 0.4%.

Top Headline

Coca-Cola Co KO reported in-line earnings for its third quarter, while sales exceeded estimates.

Coca-Cola reported third-quarter earnings of 56 cents per share, which met the analyst consensus estimate. The company reported quarterly sales of $9.5 billion, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $9.48 billion.

Coca-Cola sees fiscal year 2019 operating income up 12-13%, earnings minus 1% to up 1% and estimates fiscal year 2020 sales will be up 1-2%.


Equities Trading UP

Greenland Acquisition Corporation GLAC shares shot up 48% to $10.30. Greenland Acquisition reported adjournment of special meeting of shareholders to approve proposed business combination with Zhongchai Holding (Hong Kong) Limited.

Shares of Dermira, Inc. DERM surged 24% to $7.05 after the company presented data from Phase 2b study of lebrikizumab in patients with atopic dermatitis at he 39th Annual Fall Clinical Dermatology Conference in Las Vegas.

Ideal Power Inc. IPWR shares gained 17% to $2.71 after the company sold its Power Conversion Systems business and Power Packet Switching Architecture technology to CE+T Energy Solutions, Inc.

Equities Trading DOWN

Gildan Activewear Inc. GIL shares tumbled 22% to $27.45 after the company announced its preliminary Q3 and FY19 EPS below analyst estimates. Stifel Nicolaus downgraded the stock from Buy to Hold and lowered the price target from $44 to $30 per share.

Shares of Navios Maritime Acquisition Corporation NNA were down 21% to $8.25 after the company reported 1.88 million share offering of common stock at $8 per share.

Synthesis Energy Systems, Inc. SES was down, falling 14% to $7.94 after rising 26.9% on Thursday.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 1% to $54.44, while gold traded down 0.3% to $1,493.80.

Silver traded down 0.4% Friday to $17.54, while copper rose 1.5% to $2.6365.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.1%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.2%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.1%. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 0.1%, and the French CAC 40 slipped 0.4% while UK shares fell 0.1%

Economics

The index of leading economic indicators fell 0.1% for September.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari will speak in Bloomington, Minnesota at 10:30 a.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Board of Governors Vice Chair Richard Clarida is set to speak in Boston, Massachusetts at 11:30 a.m. ET.

The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week will be released at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan will speak in Denver, Colorado at 5:10 p.m. ET.