Mid-Day Market Update: Dollar General Falls Following Weak Results; AEP Industries Shares Spike Higher

Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.06 percent to 18,471.01 while the NASDAQ rose 0.01 percent to 5,218.11. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.01 percent to 2,175.23.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

On Thursday, basic materials shares gained by 0.46 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included AEP Industries AEPI, and Kronos Worldwide, Inc. KRO.

In trading on Thursday, cyclical consumer goods & services shares fell by 0.23 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Dollar General Corp. DG, down 14 percent, and Signet Jewelers Ltd. SIG, down 14 percent.

Top Headline

Tiffany & Co. TIF reported mixed results for the second quarter. While its earnings came in above the estimates, sales missed expectations. The company maintained its full year revenue and EPS forecast.

The company reported net earnings of $106 million, or $0.84 a share, up 1 percent from $105 million, or $0.81 a share, in the year-ago quarter. On an adjusted basis, earnings would have dipped 5 percent from $111 million, or $0.86 a share. However, earnings topped by $0.12 a share from the Street analysts' expectations of $0.72.

Tiffany's worldwide net sales fell 6 percent to $932 million thus missing analysts' predictions of $934.74 million. Its comparable store sales witnessed 8 percent drop in the second quarter.

Equities Trading UP

AEP Industries AEPI shares shot up 43 percent to $110.24. Berry Plastics Group, Inc. BERY and AEP Industries reached a definitive deal by which the former would buy the latter in a cash and stock transaction worth about $765 million.

Shares of Guess?, Inc. GES got a boost, shooting up 23 percent to $18.34 after the company reported better-than-expected Q2 earnings and raised earnings forecast for FY 2017. However, the company missed analysts’ sales estimates.

Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation NYMX shares were also up, gaining 14 percent to $5.05 after the company posted successful new long-term fexapotide placebo crossover study results.

Equities Trading DOWN

Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. NM shares dropped 12 percent to $0.911. Navios Maritime reported a Q2 loss of $0.29 per share on revenue of $105.733 million.

Shares of Dollar General Corp. DG were down 14 percent to $79.11 as the company posted weak quarterly results.

Signet Jewelers Ltd. SIG was down, falling around 14 percent to $82.42 after the company posted worse than expected results for the second quarter.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.38 percent to $46.95 while gold traded down 0.29 percent to $1,325.80.

Silver traded down 0.18 percent Thursday to $18.66, while copper rose 0.10 percent to $2.09
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Eurozone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.84 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index dropped 0.65 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 1.07 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX declined 0.88 percent, and the French CAC 40 fell 0.65 percent, while U.K. shares fell 0.28 percent.

Economics

U.S. durable-goods orders rose 4.4 percent in July, versus economists’ expectations for a 3.3 percent growth.

U.S. jobless claims dropped 1,000 to 261,000 in the latest week. However, economists were expecting initial jobless claims to reach 265,000 in the week.

Natural-gas supplies increased 11 billion cubic feet for the week ended August 19, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. Economists projected a gain of 18 billion cubic feet.

The Treasury will also auction 7-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.

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