Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Surges Around 400 Points; Portola Pharmaceuticals Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 1.7 percent to 24,324.75 while the NASDAQ climbed 1.88 percent to 7,221.37. The S&P also rose, gaining 1.49 percent to 2,668.80.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Friday afternoon, the information technology shares rose 1.9 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Pandora Media, Inc. P, up 23 percent, and Super Micro Computer, Inc. SMCI up 16 percent.

In trading on Friday, utilities shares rose by just 0.4 percent.

Top Headline

Alibaba Group Holding Limited BABA reported better-than-expected results for its fiscal fourth quarter.

Alibaba posted Q1 earnings of $0.91 per share on sales of $9.873 billion. Analysts expected earnings of $0.88 per share on sales of $9.27 billion. Alibaba expects FY19 revenue growth of over 60 percent year-over-year.

Equities Trading UP

Commercial Vehicle Group, Inc. CVGI shares shot up 33 percent to $9.01 after reporting upbeat Q1 earnings.

Shares of Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. PTLA got a boost, shooting up 25 percent to $42.23 after the FDA approved the company's Andexxa, the only antidote indicated for patients treated with rivaroxaban and apixaban.

Medifast, Inc. MED shares were also up, gaining 20 percent to $119 after the company reported strong Q1 results and raised its FY18 guidance.

Equities Trading DOWN

Check-Cap Ltd. CHEK shares dropped 48 percent to $4.57. Check-Cap priced its upsized underwritten offering of public units at $5.50 per unit.

Shares of Fluor Corporation FLR were down 22 percent to $45.94 after the company reported downbeat earnings for its first quarter and lowered its profit outlook for the year.

Universal Electronics Inc. UEIC was down, falling around 36 percent to $29.30 after the company posted downbeat quarterly results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.8 percent to $69.66 while gold traded up 0.18 percent to $1,315.00.

Silver traded up 0.41 percent Friday to $16.515, while copper rose 0.01 percent to $3.0805.

Eurozone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.63 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.65 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 1.12 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX rose 1.02 percent, and the French CAC 40 gained 0.26 percent while U.K. shares rose 1.12 percent.

Economics

The U.S. economy added 164,000 jobs in April. However, economists were expecting a gain of 189,000 jobs. The unemployment rate declined to 3.9 percent from 4.1 percent.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs gained by 9 to 834 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.