Mid-Afternoon Market Update: GNC Gains On Upbeat Earnings; Barracuda Shares Drop

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.63 percent to 20,506.40 while the NASDAQ declined 0.25 percent to 5,842.16. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.36 percent to 2,340.64.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Tuesday afternoon, the non-cyclical consumer goods & services sector proved to be a source of strength for the market. Leading the sector was strength from GNC Holdings Inc GNC and Core-Mark Holding Company, Inc. CORE.

In trading on Tuesday, healthcare shares fell by 0.98 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Cleveland BioLabs, Inc. CBLI, down 25 percent, and Infinity Pharmaceuticals Inc. INFI, down 8 percent.

Top Headline

Goldman Sachs Group Inc GS reported weaker-than-expected earnings for its first quarter on Tuesday.

Goldman Sachs said it earned $5.15 per share in the quarter on revenue of $8.03 billion; Analysts were expecting the company to earn $5.31 per share on revenue of $8.45 billion.

The company also raised its quarterly dividend from $0.65 per share to $0.75 per share and authorized the repurchase of an additional 50 million shares of its stock.

Equities Trading UP

Interpace Diagnostics Group Inc IDXG shares shot up 36 percent to $2.91. Interpace Diagnostics reported the coverage of ThyraMIR with UnitedHealthcare.

Shares of GNC Holdings Inc GNC got a boost, shooting up 26 percent to $9.10 after the company reported stronger-than-expected results for its first quarter.

Motif Bio plc - ADR MTFB shares were also up, gaining 17 percent to $8.39 after the company reported positive results for iclaprim, in the REVIVE-1 Phase 3 study.

Equities Trading DOWN

Cleveland BioLabs, Inc. CBLI shares dropped 25 percent to $3.59 after surging 194.48 percent on Monday.

Shares of Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ARNA were down around 18 percent to $1.22. Arena Pharmaceuticals priced its 60 million share offering at $1.15 per share.

Barracuda Networks Inc CUDA was down, falling around 16 percent to $19.57. Barracuda posted upbeat earnings for its fourth quarter, but issued a disappointing forecast.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.08 percent to $52.61 while gold traded up 0.08 percent to $1,292.90.

Silver traded down 1.02 percent Tuesday to $18.325, while copper fell 2.66 percent to $2.5405.

Eurozone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 1.11 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.60 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index tumbled 1.67 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX fell 0.90 percent, and the French CAC 40 fell 1.59 percent while U.K. shares fell 2.46 percent.

Economics

U.S. housing starts dropped 6.8 percent to an annual rate of 1.22 million in March. However, economists were expecting a 1.25 million rate.

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index rose 1.2 percent for the first two weeks of April versus March.

U.S. industrial production increased 0.5 percent for March, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.7 percent growth.