Mid-Afternoon Market Update: AngioDynamics Drops On Earnings Miss; Zynerba Pharmaceuticals Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.17 percent to 22,377.70 while the NASDAQ declined 0.10 percent to 6,446.75. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.08 percent to 2,508.92.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Thursday afternoon, the non-cyclical consumer goods & services shares surged 0.67 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Revlon Inc REV, up 14 percent, and McCormick & Company, Incorporated MKC, up 5 percent.

In trading on Thursday, telecommunications services shares fell 0.33 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included B Communications Ltd BCOM, down 2 percent, and China Unicom (Hong Kong) Limited (ADR) CHU down 2 percent.

Top Headline

BlackBerry Ltd BBRY reported stronger-than-expected earnings for its second quarter and reported signing of first BlackBerry secure licensing deal.

BlackBerry reported that it earned 5 cents per share in the second quarter on revenue of $238 million. Wall Street analysts were expecting the Canada-based company to lose 3 cents per share on revenue of $219.9 million.

During the quarter, BlackBerry reported a record software and service revenue of $196 million and approximately 79 percent of the software and services revenue was recurring in nature. The company ended the quarter with 3,300 enterprise customer orders.

Looking forward to the full fiscal, BlackBerry guided its sales to be in a range of $920 million to $950 million, which came in higher than the $919.5 million Wall Street analysts were previously modeling.


Equities Trading UP

Zynerba Pharmaceuticals Inc ZYNE shares shot up 56 percent to $9.64 after reporting positive top-line results for its uncontrolled phase 2 study of ZYN002 in children with Fragile X syndrome. The synthetic cannabinoid transdermal gel “successfully met its primary endpoint” on the Anxiety, Depression and Mood Scale (ADAMS) and showed “clinically meaningful improvements” in behavior, according to Zynerba's press release.

Shares of Exa Corp EXA got a boost, shooting up 43 percent to $24.19. Dassault Systèmes announced plans to acquire Exa for $24.25 per share in cash.

BlackBerry Ltd BBRY shares were also up, gaining 13 percent to $10.45 as the company reported stronger-than-expected earnings for its second quarter and reported signing of first BlackBerry secure licensing deal.


Equities Trading DOWN

DexCom, Inc. DXCM shares dropped 33 percent to $44.94 following the FDA approval of Abbott's Blood Glucose Monitoring Device and analyst downgrades.

Shares of Comtech Telecomm. Corp. CMTL were down 18 percent to $17.50. Comtech posted upbeat quarterly earnings, but sales missed estimates.

AngioDynamics, Inc. ANGO was down, falling around 14 percent to $16.22 after the company posted downbeat quarterly results.


Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 1.15 percent to $51.54 while gold traded up 0.25 percent to $1,291.00.

Silver traded up 0.52 percent Thursday to $16.915, while copper rose 1.66 percent to $2.978.

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.19 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.39 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index slipped 0.15 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 0.37 percent, and the French CAC 40 gained 0.22 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.13 percent.

Economics

The U.S. economy grew at a pace of 3.1 percent in the second quarter, versus prior reading of 3 percent growth.

Initial jobless claims increased 12,000 to 272,000 in latest week. However, economists were expecting claims to reach 270,000 last week.

U.S. trade deficit dropped 1.4 percent to $62.9 billion in August from $63.9 billion.

Domestic supplies of natural gas gained 58 billion cubic feet for the week ended September 22, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. However, analysts expected a rise of 66 billion cubic feet.

The Kansas City Fed manufacturing index for September is schedule for release at 11:00 a.m. ET.

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

Posted In: NewsEurozoneCommoditiesGlobalIntraday UpdateMarketsMid-Afternoon Market Update
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