Mid-Day Market Update: US Stocks Fall; Belden Shares Gain On Earnings Beat

Midway through trading Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.50 percent to 15,947.13 while the NASDAQ dipped 0.33 percent to 4,269.54. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.36 percent to 1,846.86. Leading and Lagging Sectors On Tuesday, non-cyclical consumer goods & services shares fell by just 0.21 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Weight Watchers International, Inc. WTW, up 12 percent, and National Beverage Corp. FIZZ up 6 percent. In trading on Tuesday, energy shares tumbled by 2.26 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Bristow Group Inc BRS, down 22 percent, and SemGroup Corp SEMG, down 18 percent. Top Headline The Coca-Cola Co KO reported better-than-expected results for its fourth quarter. Coca-Cola said that it earned $0.38 per share in the fourth quarter on revenue of $10.0 billion. Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to earn $0.37 per share on revenue of $9.9 billion. Looking forward to fiscal 2016, Coca-Cola is guiding its full-year currency neutral earnings per share growth to be 4 percent to 6 percent (including the impact of 3 to 4 points of structural headwind) Equities Trading UP Bellerophon Therapeutics Inc BLPH shares shot up 39 percent to $2.76 after the company reported positive data from Phase 2 long-term extension study of INOpulse. Shares of Belden Inc. BDC got a boost, shooting up 18 percent to $43.90 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 earnings. Cambrex Corporation CBM shares were also up, gaining 16 percent to $37.91 after the company posted upbeat Q4 earnings. Equities Trading DOWN Qualys Inc QLYS shares dropped 20 percent to $18.11 after the company issued a weak forecast. Shares of American Science & Engineering, Inc. ASEI were down 27 percent to $24.81 after the company reported downbeat Q3 results. GigOptix Inc GIG was down, falling around 22 percent to $2.35. Gigoptix reported Q4 earnings of $0.05 per share on sales of $11.1 million. Commodities In commodity news, oil traded up 0.57 percent to $29.86, while gold traded down 0.64 percent to $1,190.20. Silver traded down 0.46 percent Tuesday to $15.36, while copper fell 2.77 percent to $2.03. Eurozone European shares were lower today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 fell 1.71 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 2.20 percent, while Italy's FTSE MIB Index declined 2.85 percent. Meanwhile, the German DAX fell 1.64 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 2.41 percent, while U.K. shares fell 1.22 percent. Economics U.S. wholesale inventories declined 0.1 percent in December.