Mid-Day Market Update: Dow Down Over 250 Points; STAAR Surgical Shares Spike Higher

Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 1.13 percent to 23,653.67 while the NASDAQ declined 0.91 percent to 7,036.18. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.98 percent to 2,609.83.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

On Thursday, the real estate shares rose 0.14 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Government Properties Income Trust GOV, up 7 percent, and The GEO Group, Inc. GEO up 3 percent.

In trading on Thursday, financial shares tumbled 2.24 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

STAAR Surgical Company STAA shares shot up 28 percent to $21.40 after reporting upbeat Q1 results.

Shares of Integrated Media Technology Limited IMTE got a boost, shooting up 57 percent to $34.52. 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 31 percent to $4.60 after gaining 9.32 percent on Wednesday.

Equities Trading DOWN

Heat Biologics, Inc. HTBX shares dropped 48 percent to $1.285 after the company priced its $18,000,000 public offering.

Shares of Achaogen, Inc. AKAO were down 22 percent to $11.50 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 17 percent to $8.475 after the company reported downbeat quarterly results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.31 percent to $67.72 while gold traded up 0.71 percent to $1,314.90.

Silver traded up 0.46 percent Thursday to $16.45, while copper fell 0.11 percent to $3.065.

Eurozone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 0.73 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.50 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.83 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX fell 0.88 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 0.50 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.54 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.

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