Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Kellogg Earnings Top Views

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.86 percent to 23,718.47 while the NASDAQ declined 0.54 percent to 7,062.52. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.73 percent to 2,616.54.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Thursday morning, the materials shares rose 0.20 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Ryerson Holding Corporation RYI, up 11 percent, and Warrior Met Coal, Inc. HCC up 11 percent.

In trading on Thursday, financial shares tumbled 1.05 percent.

Top Headline

Kellogg Company K reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter.

Kellogg posted Q1 earnings of $1.19 per share on sales of $3.401 billion. Analysts expected earnings of $1.08 per share on sales of $3.29 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Boxlight Corporation BOXL shares shot up 49 percent to $11.00 after climbing 107.87 percent on Wednesday.

Shares of Integrated Media Technology Limited IMTE got a boost, shooting up 67 percent to $36.71. The nano-cap low-float stock skyrocketed over 1,300 percent on Wednesday on no company specific news which would support the surge. The move higher is consistent with what was seen in other low-float stocks over the past few months.

Sharing Economy International Inc. SEII shares were also up, gaining 48 percent to $5.22 after gaining 9.32 percent on Wednesday.

Equities Trading DOWN

Heat Biologics, Inc. HTBX shares dropped 49 percent to $1.26 after the company priced its $18,000,000 public offering.

Shares of Achaogen, Inc. AKAO were down 28 percent to $10.60 in reaction to a disappointing update from an FDA AdCom panel. The FDA panel voted favorably for the company's Plazcomicin for treatment of adults with complicated urinary tract infections, but also voted against the therapy to be used as a treatment for bloodstream infections.

The Habit Restaurants, Inc. HABT was down, falling around 19 percent to $8.325 after the company reported downbeat quarterly results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.62 percent to $67.51 while gold traded down 0.82 percent to $1,316.30.

Silver traded up 1.01 percent Thursday to $16.54, while copper rose 1.03 percent to $3.10.

Eurozone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 0.38 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.26 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.57 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX fell 0.42 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 0.23 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.46 percent.

Economics

Initial jobless claims increased 2,000 to 211,000 in the latest week. Economists projected claims to reach 225,000 last week.

The trade deficit fell 15 percent to $49 billion in March versus $57.7 billion in February.

U.S. nonfarm productivity gained 0.7 percent for the first quarter.

The Markit services PMI rose to 54.6 in April from 54 in March.

U.S. factory orders rose 1.6 percent for March.

The ISM non-manufacturing index declined to 56.8 in April, versus 58.8 in March.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is schedule for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

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