Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Prestige Brands Gains On Earnings Beat; MDC Partners Shares Slide

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.74 percent to 24,723.63 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.75 percent to 7,394.55. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.82 percent to 2,719.77.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Thursday afternoon, the health care shares rose 1.79 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Partner Communications Company Ltd. PTNR, up 8 percent, and Cellcom Israel Ltd. CEL up 7 percent.

In trading on Thursday, consumer discretionary shares rose by just 0.3 percent.

Top Headline

Magna International Inc. (USA) MGA reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter.

Magna International posted Q1 earnings of $1.84 per share on sales of $10.792 billion. Analysts expected earnings of $1.70 per share on sales of $10.11 billion.

Magna now expects FY18 sales of $40.9 billion to $43.1 billion, versus earlier forecast of $39.3 billion to $41.5 billion. It projects net income of $2.4 billion to $2.6 billion.

Equities Trading UP

ARMO BioSciences, Inc. ARMO shares shot up 67 percent to $49.805 after Eli Lilly and Company LLY announced plans to acquire ARMO BioSciences for $50 per share.

Shares of Turtle Beach Corporation HEAR got a boost, shooting up 63 percent to $11.326 after the company reported Q1 results and raised its FY18 outlook.

Prestige Brands Holdings, Inc. PBH shares were also up, gaining 23 percent to $35.07 after the company posted upbeat Q4 earnings.

Equities Trading DOWN

Amedica Corporation AMDA shares dropped 50 percent to $1.2137 after the company reported pricing of $15,000,000 public offering of units consisting of convertible preferred stock and warrants.

Shares of MDC Partners Inc. MDCA were down 33 percent to $ 4.575 after a first-quarter earnings miss.

Hudson Technologies Inc. HDSN was down, falling around 32 percent to $2.7799 after the company reported downbeat Q1 earnings.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.38 percent to $70.87 while gold traded up 0.53 percent to $1,320.00.

Silver traded up 1.15 percent Thursday to $16.73, while copper rose 1.62 to $3.107
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Eurozone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 0.12 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.25 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.96 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX rose 0.62 percent, and the French CAC 40 gained 0.20 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.5 percent.

Economics

The Consumer Price Index rose 0.2 percent for April, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.3 percent rise.

U.S. initial jobless claims were flat at 211,000 in the latest week. However, economists were expecting claims to reach 218,000.

Domestic supplies of natural gas increased 89 billion cubic feet for the week ended May 4, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts projected a gain of 92 billion cubic feet.

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