The Market In 5 Minutes: Blowout Jobs Report Pushes Markets Higher

Below is a tool used by the Benzinga News Desk each trading day -- it's a look at everything happening in the market, in five minutes. Apply for daily AM access by clicking here or email minutes@benzinga.com.

Macro Focus

The U.S. stock market was mostly unchanged on Thursday. The Dow recorded a small loss while the S&P and Nasdaq closed the session with small gains. Wall Street was gearing up for a mildly positive trading day on Friday, with stock futures tilting higher.

Oil prices traded higher as Brent crude futures declined 0.81 percent to trade at $43.93 per barrel, while US WTI crude futures also fell 0.69 percent to trade at $41.62 a barrel.

Nonfarm Payrolls for Jul 255.0K vs 180.0K consensus estimate. USA Private Payrolls for Jul 217.0K vs 170.0K Est.

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

Data on consumer credit for June will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.

BZ News Desk Focus

FireEye FEYE Reports Q2 Adj. EPS $(0.33) vs $(0.39) Est., Sales $175M vs $181.7M Est.

Priceline PCLN Reports Q2 Adj. EPS $13.90 vs. Est. $12.69, Rev. $ 2.56B vs. Est. $2.58B.

TASER TASR Reports Q2 EPS $0.07 vs $0.04 Est, Sales $58.8M vs $54.42M Est.

Activision-Blizzard ATVI Reports Q2 Adj. EPS $0.45 vs $0.42 Est., Sales $1.57B vs $1.46B Est.

Take-Two TTWO Reports Q1 Adj. EPS $(0.21) vs $(0.29) Est., Sales $311.6M vs $259.4M Est.

Cognizant CTSH Reports Q2 Adj. EPS $0.87 vs $0.82 Est., Sales $3.37B, Inline; Adds $1B to Buyback Plan

Bristol-Myers BMY traded down 20 percent after Opdivo did not meet its primary endpoint. Competitor Merck MRK spiked up on the news.

Sell-Sides Most Noteworthy Calls

Baird downgraded Regeneron REGN to Neutral.

Deutsche Bank downgraded Tripadvisor (NASDAQTRIP) to Hold.

Jefferies upgraded U.S. Steel X to Hold.

Telsey upgraded Coach COH to Outperform.

Longbow started coverage on La-Z-Boy LZB at neutral.

SunTrust started coverage on Clovis CLVS at Buy.

Deal Talk

Dow Chemical DOW and DuPont DD were volatile Thursday following a report from MLex that the EU could launch an investigation into the merger of the two companies and had declined to approve the concessions made to secure approval. Dow and Dupont announced their $130 billion merger in December.

Rackspace RAX is near a deal to be acquired by a private-equity firm, according to sources as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The sources said a deal could be reached as early as this week. Rackspace announced in May 2014 it had hired Morgan Stanley to assist in exploring strategic alternatives. The company has been the subject of frequent takeover rumors and has struggled to compete against Amazon Web Services AMZN.

In The News

A raft of new national and battleground-state polls released Thursday found Donald Trump slipping well behind Hillary Clinton one week after the end of the Democratic convention, and as the Republican nominee reels from a public feud with the parents of a slain Muslim American soldier. New polls show Trump falling 9 to 11 points.

Quarter after quarter, about 75 percent of companies in the S&P 500 index meet or exceed analysts’ earnings forecasts, a statistic that has held up in good times and bad. One reason for such consistently impressive results is that some companies quietly nudge analysts’ numbers, almost always lower.

Blogosphere

How I became a morning person: "You look at your messages, the news, and the weather. 'I’m half asleep,' you think. 'I’ll just look at Twitter while I wake up.' Ten minutes pass, then another five. You’re not asleep, but you’re not really awake either."

Chart Of The Day

A Recode article in April asked if this company had "The only good social network."
It hit an all-time high of $86.97 in May 2011.
This stock got a significant celebrity endorsement in mid-October.

Click here for the answer.

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