Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Falls Over 300 Points; Williams-Sonoma Shares Climb On Upbeat Earnings

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded down 1.27 percent to 24850 while the NASDAQ fell 1.35 percent to 7,465. The S&P also fell, dropping 1.24 percent to 2,754.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Real estate shares rose 1.1 percent on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. ELS, up 3 percent, and iStar Inc. STAR, up 3 percent.

In trading on Friday, communication services shares fell by 1.9 percent.

Top Headline

Big Lots, Inc. BIG reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter and raised FY19 guidance.

Big Lots reported quarterly earnings of 92 per share, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of 70 cents. The company reported quarterly sales of $1.296 billion, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $1.3 billion.

Big Lots raised its FY2019 adjusted EPS guidance from $3.55-$3.75 to $3.70-$3.85.

Equities Trading UP

Stellar Biotechnologies, Inc. SBOT shares shot up 71 percent to $2.05 following an 8-K filing late Thursday disclosing its board and Edesa Biotech approved a transaction that was originally disclosed on March 8. During the fiscal second quarter, Stellar Biotech entered into a share exchange agreement with Edesa Biotech, a Canadian biopharmaceutical company. Under the terms of the agreement, Edesa Biotech shareholders agreed to exchange their shares of Edesa for newly-issued common shares of Stellar.

Shares of Genocea Biosciences, Inc. GNCA got a boost, shooting up 30 percent to $5.84. Genocea Biosciences announced Friday that the Journal of Clinical Oncology has selected the company’s GEN-009 clinical results presentation at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting as a top 10 featured abstract in immuno-oncology.

Williams-Sonoma, Inc. WSM shares were also up, gaining 12 percent to $57.69 after the company reported better-than-expected Q1 EPS and sales results. The company also raised FY20 guidance.

Equities Trading DOWN

Zuora, Inc. ZUO shares tumbled 30 percent to $13.89 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q1 sales results and issued weak Q2 and FY20 EPS and sales guidance.

Shares of CSS Industries, Inc. CSS were down 23 percent to $4.73 after the company reported downbeat Q4 results.

XBiotech Inc. XBIT was down, falling 21 percent to $7.17. XBiotech priced its 4.848 million share common stock offering at $8.25 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 5.5 percent to $53.47, while gold traded up 1.4 percent to $1,310.50.

Silver traded up 0.6 percent Friday to $14.575, while copper fell 0.5 percent to $2.64.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.81 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.68 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.73 percent. Meanwhile, the German DAX dropped 1.47 percent, and the French CAC 40 dropped 0.79 percent while UK shares fell 0.78 percent.

Economics

U.S. consumer spending rose 0.3 percent for April, while personal income increased 0.5 percent.

The Chicago PMI rose to 54.2 in May, compared to a reading of 52.6 in April.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index declined to 100 for May, versus an initial reading of 102.4.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs increased by 3 to 800 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.

Data on farm prices for April will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.