Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Higher; Costco Sales Miss Views

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded up 0.63% to 26366.19 while the NASDAQ rose 0.71% to 7927.83. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.68% to 2,930.45.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares rose 1.3% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Exela Technologies, Inc. XELA, up 30%, and RingCentral, Inc. RNG, up 25%.

In trading on Friday, energy shares rose by just 0.3%.

Top Headline

On Thursday, Costco Wholesale Corporation COST reported upbeat earnings for its fourth quarter, while sales missed views.

Adjusted earnings came in at $2.69, beating estimates by 15 cents. Sales came in at $46.45 billion, missing estimates by $1.16 billion.


Equities Trading UP

Exela Technologies Inc XELA shares shot up 38% to $1.52 after the company announced that the company along with General Dynamics was selected for a $2 billion program by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Shares of RingCentral Inc RNG surged 27% to $161.19 after the company would become an exclusive provider of UCaaS Solutions to Avaya in a strategic partnership.

Avaya Holdings Corp AVYA was up, rising 23% to $12.48 after the company announced a partnership with RingCentral, an enterprise cloud communications contact center. The partnership will introduce "Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral," which is a communications as a service (UCaaS) solution.

Equities Trading DOWN

Ovid Therapeutics Inc. OVID shares tumbled 26% to $2.42 after the company announced a proposed concurrent public offering of common stock and preferred stock.

Shares of Arcimoto, Inc. FUV were down 13% to $2.44. Arcimoto priced 1.04 million share common stock offering at $2.25 per share.

Avnet, Inc. AVT was down, falling 12% to $38.76 after Texas Instruments ended its distribution relationship with the company. Texas Instruments products made up approximately 10% of the company's sales in FY19.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 0.3% to $52.59, while gold traded up 0.1% to $1,515.40.

Silver traded down 0.2% Friday to $17.645, while copper fell 0.5% to $2.542.

Euro zone

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

Economics

The U.S. economy added 136,000 new jobs in September. However, economists were expecting a gain of 140,000 jobs. U.S. unemployment rate fell to 3.5% last month.

The U.S. trade deficit increased 1.6% to $54.9 billion in August, the Commerce Department reported. However, economists were expecting a deficit of 54.5 billion.

Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Raphael Bostic will speak in New Orleans, Louisiana at 10:25 a.m. ET.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari is set to speak in Minneapolis, Minnesota at 12:45 p.m. ET.

The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week is schedule for release at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is set to speak in Washington, D.C. at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Member of the Board of Governors Lael Brainard will speak in Washington, D.C. at 2:10 p.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Board Vice-Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles is set to speak in Washington, D.C. at 4:00 p.m. ET.