Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Walker & Dunlop Gains After Q4 Results; SPS Commerce Shares Tumble

Toward the end of trading Wednesday, the Dow traded down 0.17 percent to 20,055.42 while the NASDAQ gained 0.15 percent to 5,682.95. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.08 percent to 2,294.89.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Cyclical consumer goods & services shares rose by 0.58 percent in trading on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Panera Bread Co PNRA, and Citi Trends, Inc. CTRN.

In trading on Wednesday, financial shares dropped by 0.22 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Assurant, Inc. AIZ, down 6 percent, and Capital City Bank Group, Inc. CCBG, down 5 percent.

Top Headline

Time Warner Inc TWX reported better-than-expected results for its fourth quarter.

Time Warner reported Q4 earnings of $1.25 per share on revenue of $7.89 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of $1.19 per share on revenue of $7.72 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Universal Corp UVV shares shot up 16 percent to $81.75 following Q3 results. Universal Corp reported FQ3 net income of $53.6 million on revenue of $668.8 million.

Shares of Coherent, Inc. COHR got a boost, shooting up 17 percent to $189.21 after the company reported better-than-expected Q1 earnings.

Walker & Dunlop, Inc. WD shares were also up, gaining 14 percent to $36.73 after the company posted strong Q4 results.

Equities Trading DOWN

Galena Biopharma Inc GALE shares dropped 40 percent to $0.840. Galena Biopharma priced its offering with anticipated gross proceeds of $17 million.

Shares of Real Goods Solar, Inc. RGSE were down around 23 percent to $2.20. RGS Energy priced its $6 million public offering of common stock and warrants.

SPS Commerce, Inc. SPSC was down, falling around 20 percent to $52.74. SPS Commerce posted upbeat Q4 results, but issued a weak forecast for the current quarter.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.40 percent to $52.38 while gold traded up 0.41 percent to $1,241.20.

Silver traded up 0.16 percent Wednesday to $17.79, while copper rose 1.37 percent to $2.67.

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.33 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.02 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.58 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX slipped 0.05 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.26 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.04 percent.

Economics

Crude-oil supplies rose 13.83 million barrels for the week ended February 3. However, analysts were expecting a gain of 2.53 million barrels.