Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Renesas Electronics To Acquire Intersil For $22.50/Share

Following the market opening Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.97 percent to 18,147.63 while the NASDAQ declined 0.83 percent to 5,168.69. The S&P also fell, dropping 1.10 percent to 2,135.35.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Tuesday morning, non-cyclical consumer goods & services shares slipped by just 0.2 percent.

In trading on Tuesday, energy shares tumbled around 2 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Approach Resources Inc. AREX, down 9 percent, and Chesapeake Energy Corporation CHK, down 8 percent.

Top Headline

Japan's Renesas Electronics announced plans to buy Intersil Corp ISIL for $3.22 billion.

Renesas expects to complete the transaction by June 2017.

Equities Trading UP

WPCS International Incorporated WPCS shares shot up 18 percent to $1.53. WPCS reported Q1 earnings of $0.14 per share, versus a year-ago loss of $2.84 per share.

Shares of Optical Cable Corporation OCC got a boost, shooting up 7 percent to $2.32. Optical Cable reported Q3 earnings of $0.03 per share on sales of $16.9 million.

Intersil Corp ISIL shares were also up, gaining 9 percent to $21.55 after Renesas Electronics announced plans to buy the company for $3.22 billion.

Equities Trading DOWN

Applied Genetic Technologies Corp AGTC shares dropped 31 percent to $9.05. Applied Genetic Technologies reported Q4 earnings of $0.15 per share on revenue of $12.1 million. Janney Capital downgrades Applied Genetic Tech from Buy to Sell, while Wells Fargo downgraded the stock from Outperform to Market Perform.

Shares of Marrone Bio Innovations Inc MBII were down 9 percent to $1.71. Marrone Bio Innovations hired Ruben Ramos for its growing Latin American business.

Farmer Brothers Co. FARM was down, falling around 5 percent to $31.76 after the company posted downbeat results for its fiscal fourth quarter on Monday.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.88 percent to $45.42 while gold traded up 0.23 percent to $1,328.60.

Silver traded up 0.66 percent Tuesday to $19.13, while copper rose 0.67 percent to $2.11.

Eurozone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.16 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index dropped 0.61 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 0.48 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 0.29 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 0.14 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.27 percent.

Economics

The NFIB small business optimism index declined 0.2 points to 94.4 in August.

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index dropped 0.3 percent during the second week of September versus August.

The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 52-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury will auction 30-year bonds at 1:00 p.m. ET.

The Treasury budget report for August is schedule for release at 2:00 p.m. ET.