Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Down 2%; PriceSmart Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded down 1.74 percent to 24,079.11 while the NASDAQ declined 1.40 percent to 6,977.84. The S&P also fell, dropping 1.44 percent to 2,624.49.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Friday afternoon, the real estate shares slipped by just 0.1 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Front Yard Residential Corporation RESI, up 4 percent, and American Realty Investors, Inc. ARL, up 5 percent.

In trading on Friday, industrials shares fell 1.63 percent.

Top Headline

Greenbrier Companies Inc GBX reported better-than-expected results for fiscal second quarter.

The supplier of equipment and services to global freight transportation markets said it earned $1.02 per share in the quarter on revenue of $629.3 million versus expectations of 97 cents per share and $612.8 million.

Equities Trading UP

Broadwind Energy, Inc. BWEN shares shot up 24 percent to $2.895 after the company disclosed that it has recently booked $10 million in new tower orders and Gearing segment orders of $15 million in Q1.

Shares of Longfin Corp. LFIN got a boost, shooting up 47 percent to $28.189 after climbing 64.86 percent on Thursday.

PriceSmart, Inc. PSMT shares were also up, gaining 10 percent to $92.1229 after the company reported stronger-than-expected results for its second quarter on Thursday. PriceSmart named Maarten Jager as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The company’s net warehouse club sales for March rose 8.9 percent to $261.3 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

NewLink Genetics Corporation NLNK shares dropped 41 percent to $4.35.

Shares of Incyte Corporation INCY were down 17 percent to $68.6601 after the company announced Friday a disappointing update to a phase 3 trial. Incyte said its experimental therapy called epacadostat failed in a phase 3 trial called ECHO-301 to improve the efficacy of Merck & Co's Keytruda when the two therapies were combined to treat patients suffering from melanoma.

MannKind Corporation MNKD was down, falling around 24 percent to $1.799. MannKind priced its 14 million share registered direct offering at $2 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.8 percent to $62.27 while gold traded up 0.48 percent to $1,334.90.

Silver traded down 0.06 percent Friday to $16.345, while copper fell 0.60 percent to $3.056.

Eurozone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.35 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index slipped 0.60 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dropped 0.17 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX fell 0.52 percent, and the French CAC 40 fell 0.35 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.22 percent.

Economics

The U.S. economy added 103,000 new jobs in March. However, economists were expecting a gain of 193,000 new nonfarm jobs. The unemployment rate remained at 4.1 percent in March.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs rose by 11 to 808 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.

San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams is set to speak in Santa Rosa, California at 4:00 p.m. ET.