Mid-Day Market Update: Crude Oil Down Over 3%; Pivotal Software Shares Climb

Midway through trading Friday, the Dow traded down 1.73% to 25797.95 while the NASDAQ fell 2.17% to 7818.33. The S&P also fell, dropping 1.8% to 2870.40.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Utilities shares slipped by just 0.3% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included UGI Corporation UGI, up 1%, and NextEra Energy, Inc. NEE, up 0.5%.

In trading on Friday, information technology shares fell 2.4%.

Top Headline

Foot Locker, Inc. FL reported worse-than-expected second-quarter results.

The company reported second-quarter earnings of 66 cents per share, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of 67 cents. Foot Locker reported quarterly sales of $1.774 billion, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $1.82 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Fuwei Films (Holdings) Co., Ltd. FFHL shares shot up 169% to $5.30 after the company reported Q2 EPS and sales results up from last year..

Shares of Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. OPTT got a boost, shooting up 19% to $1.9100 after the company announced the successful North Sea deployment of the PB3 PowerBuoy for its customer, Premier Oil.

Pivotal Software, Inc. PVTL shares were also up, gaining 9% to $14.89 after it was announced VMware plans to acquire the company for a blended price of $11.71 per share.

Equities Trading DOWN

Craft Brew Alliance, Inc. BREW shares tumbled 19% to $10.50 after the company confirmed it will receive $20 million incentive payment from Anheuser-Busch in lieu of qualifying offer.

Shares of Adtalem Global Education Inc. ATGE were down 14% to $44.04 after reporting Q4 results.

Foot Locker, Inc. FL was down, falling 16% to $35.19 after the company reported worse-than-expected second-quarter results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 3.2% to $53.59, while gold traded up 1.6% to $1,533.40.

Silver traded up 1.9% Friday to $17.365, while copper fell 1% to $2.5325.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.78%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.77%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dipped 1.65%. Meanwhile, the German DAX fell 1.15% and the French CAC 40 dropped 1.14% while UK shares fell 0.47%.

Economics

U.S. new home sales declined 12.8% to an annual rate of 635,000 in July.

The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week is schedule for release at 1:00 p.m. ET.