Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Mostly Flat; Dollar General Profit Beats Expectations

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.05 percent to 17,861.10 while the NASDAQ declined 0.02 percent to 4,894.11. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.01 percent to 2,090.83. Leading and Lagging Sectors Basic materials shares gained by 0.6 percent in trading on Thursday. Top gainers in the sector included ArcelorMittal SA (ADR) MT, United States Steel Corporation X, and AK Steel Holding Corporation AKS. In trading on Thursday, Financial shares slipped by 0.2 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included NewStar Financial Inc NEWS, down 4 percent, and Shore Bancshares, Inc. SHBI, down 4 percent. Top Headline Dollar General Corp. DG reported upbeat profit for the first quarter on Thursday. Dollar General said it earned $1.03 per share in the first quarter on revenue of $5.27 billion. Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to earn $0.95 per share on revenue of $5.27 billion. Equities Trading UP Minerva Neurosciences Inc NERV shares shot up 154 percent to $8.98 following positive MIN-117 results. Shares of Flexion Therapeutics Inc FLXN got a boost, shooting up 23 percent to $14.07 as the company revealed that it has received positive guidance from the FDA on New Drug Application submission for Zilretta. Dollar Tree, Inc. DLTR shares were also up, gaining 9 percent to $85.52 as the company reported better-than-expected Q1 earnings and raised its FY16 guidance. Equities Trading DOWN Tidewater Inc. TDW shares dropped 33 percent to $4.09. Tidewater posted Q4 GAAP loss of $1.74 per share on revenue of $184.2 million. Shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc IONS were down 26 percent to $26.11 after the company issued an update on the IONIS-TTR program. The company reported that GSK has decided not to initiate Phase 3 outcome study which was planned to evaluate IONIS-TTR in patients with TTR amyloid cardiomyopathy. OvaScience Inc OVAS was down, falling around 26 percent to $7.25. OvaScience priced 7.15 million shares at $7.00 per share. Commodities In commodity news, oil traded up 0.65 percent to $49.88 while gold traded up 0.52 percent to $1,233.00. Silver traded up 1.69 percent Thursday to $16.54, while copper rose 0.88 percent to $2.12. Eurozone European shares were mixed today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 slipped 0.07 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.62 percent, while Italy's FTSE MIB Index gained 0.01 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 0.61 percent, and the French CAC 40 gained 0.50 percent, while U.K. shares fell 0.11 percent. Economics U.S. durable goods orders rose 3.40 percent for April, versus economists' expectations for a 0.50 percent growth. Initial jobless claims declined 10,000 to 268,000 in the recent week. However, economists were expecting claims to drop to 275,000 in the week. The pending home sales index rose 5.1 percent to 116.3 in April.