Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Rises Over 100 Points; Progress Software Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.42 percent to 24,219.75 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.68 percent to 7,495.38 . The S&P also rose, gaining 0.57 percent to 2,715.03.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Thursday afternoon, the telecommunication services shares surged 1.6 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Mobil'nye Telesistemy PAO (ADR) MBT up 4 percent, and Verizon Communications Inc. VZ up 3 percent.

In trading on Thursday, industrial shares fell 0.26 percent.

Top Headline

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc WBA reported better-than-expected results for its third quarter on Thursday.

Walgreens posted Q3 earnings of $1.53 per share on sales of $34.334 billion. Analysts expected earnings of $1.48 per share on revenue of $34.16 billion.

Walgreens Boots Alliance announced a $10 billion buyback plans and raised its quarterly dividend from $0.40 to $0.44 per share.

Equities Trading UP

Neuronetics, Inc. STIM shares shot up 66 percent to $28.20. Neurostimulation device maker Neuronetics priced its IPO of 5.5 million shares at $17 per share.

Shares of New Concept Energy, Inc. GBR got a boost, shooting up 45 percent to $2.10 after Realty Advisors disclosed a new 2.81 percent stake in the company.

Progress Software Corporation PRGS shares were also up, gaining 17 percent to $40.73 following Q2 results. Benchmark upgraded Progress Software from Sell to Hold.

Equities Trading DOWN

Arsanis, Inc. ASNS shares dropped 76 percent to $4.42 after the company announced plans to discontinue its Phase 2 trial of ASN100.

Shares of Keryx Biopharmaceuticals KERX were down 26 percent to $3.32. Akebia Theraepeutics and Kerx Biopharma announced plans to merge.

Pier 1 Imports, Inc. PIR was down, falling around 20 percent to $2.41 after the company reported weak sales for its first quarter. Comps were down 8.2 percent in the quarter. The company sees comps down 6-7 percent in the second quarter.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.28 percent to $73.69 while gold traded down 0.36 percent to $1,251.60.

Silver traded down 1.13 percent Thursday to $16.17, while copper fell 1.31 to $2.968.

Eurozone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 0.82 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.72 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.58 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX dropped 1.39 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 0.97 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.08 percent.

Economics

U.S. economy expanded at an annual rate of 2 percent in the first quarter,.

Initial jobless claims rose 9,000 to 227,000 in the latest week. Economists were expecting claims to reach 220,000.

Domestic supplies of natural gas climbed 66 billion cubic feet for the week ended June 22, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts projected forecast a gain of 74 billion cubic feet.

Data on farm prices for May will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.

Data on money supply for the latest week will be released at 4:30 p.m. ET.