Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Down 1.3%; Ruby Tuesday Shares Fall Following Q1 Results

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded down 0.01 percent to 18,268.06 while the NASDAQ declined 0.23 percent to 5,294.88. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.17 percent to 2,157.03.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Friday afternoon, non-cyclical consumer goods & services shares rose by 0.10 percent.

In trading on Friday, industrial shares tumbled by 0.89 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Honeywell International Inc. HON, down 8 percent, and Ampco-Pittsburgh Corp AP, down 7 percent.

Top Headline

Silicon Motion Technology Corp. (ADR) SIMO lifted its outlook for the third quarter.

The company indicated that its revenue growth would likely be 11–13 percent sequentially compared to its initial guidance of 0–5 percent disclosed on July 22. Similarly, adjusted gross margin forecast is increased to 48–49 percent from the earlier outlook of 46–48 percent.

Silicon Motion will release its third quarter results on October 27 after the market closes; the conference call is scheduled for the next day.

Equities Trading UP

Lipocine Inc LPCN shares shot up 31 percent to $5.46. H.C. Wainwright initiated coverage on Lipocine with a Buy rating and a $25.00 price target.

Shares of Sanchez Production Partners LP SPP got a boost, shooting up 34 percent to $14.20 as Sanchez Energy Corp SN agreed to sell interest in South Texas processing plant to Sanchez Production Partners. Sanchez Production Partners will also acquire certain non-core assets located in South Texas.

Gap Inc GPS shares were also up, gaining 15 percent to $26.30. Gap reported a 3 percent decline in its September same-store sales. Its total sales for the month fell 2 percent.

Equities Trading DOWN

Clovis Oncology Inc CLVS shares dropped 18 percent to $29.44 after the company disclosed its oral presentation of the primary efficacy and safety data for rucaparib from its NDA dataset at the 2016 ESMO Congress. The company indicated that the drug candidate is under FDA's priority review for the treatment of monotherapy of advanced ovarian cancer in patients with BRCA-mutated tumors inclusive of germline and somatic BRCA mutations. The submission date for PDUFA is February 23, 2017.

Shares of Ruby Tuesday, Inc. RT were down 9 percent to $2.29 as the company posted a wider-than-expected loss for its first quarter on Thursday.

Mistras Group Inc MG was down, falling around 13 percent to $20.27 after the company reported weak revenue for the first quarter and cut its fiscal 2017 outlook.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.3 percent to $49.81 while gold traded up 0.10 percent to $1,254.30.

Silver traded up 0.72 percent Friday to $17.47, while copper rose 0.51 percent to $2.17.

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 0.93 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.52 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.52 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX fell 0.74 percent, and the French CAC 40 declined 0.67 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.63 percent.

Economics

The U.S. economy added 156,000 new jobs in September, while the unemployment rate increased to 5 percent from 4.9 percent. Economists were expecting an addition of 175,000 jobs for September.

U.S. wholesale inventories declined 0.20 percent for August, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.10 percent drop.

Federal Reserve Board Governor Lael Brainard will speak in Washington DC at 4:00 p.m. ET.