Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Bed Bath & Beyond Tumbles Following Q3 Miss; Applied Genetic Technologies Shares Jump

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.69% to 28942.73 while the NASDAQ rose 0.74% to 9196.68. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.60% to 3272.53.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares climbed 1% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included GTT Communications Inc GTT, up 12%, and Intellicheck, Inc. IDN, up 12%.

In trading on Thursday, real estate shares rose by just 0.1%.

Top Headline

Apple Inc. AAPL reported strong holiday sales.

Apple said its App Store customers had spent $1.42 billion between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, representing 16% growth versus the same period last year. Apple customers spent $386 million on New Year’s Day alone, setting a new single-day record.

Equities Trading UP

Genetic Technologies Limited. GENE shares shot up 25% to $4.08.

Shares of Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation AGTC got a boost, shooting up 107% to $8.61 after the company released a positive midstage readout for its gene therapy to treat an inherited eye disorder. he Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company said six-month data from an ongoing Phase 1/2 study that is evaluating its AAV-based gene therapy in X-linked retinitis pigmentosa (XLRP) showed the product candidate produced durable improvement in visual function six months after dosing.
ADMA Biologics Inc ADMA shares were also up, gaining 23% to $4.56 after the company reported preliminary Q4 results.

Equities Trading DOWN

Tufin Software Technologies Ltd TUFN shares tumbled 24% to $13.02 after the company announced Q4 sales of $29.5 million-$30.1 million compared to the previous range of $34 million-$38 million.

Shares of Can-Fite BioPharma Ltd. CANF were down 21% to $2.7480. Can-Fite announced exercise of warrants for cash proceeds of $2.4 million.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. BBBY was down, falling 18% to $13.65 after declining 25.78% after the company reported weaker-than-expected results for its third quarter. The company expects sales and profitability to remain pressured and withdrew its 2019 fiscal year guidance.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 0.1% to $59.61, while gold traded down 0.4% to $1,553.60.

Silver traded down 1.3% Thursday to $17.94, while copper fell 0.5% to $2.798.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.31%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.10%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.77%. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 1.31%, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.19% while UK shares rose 0.31%.

Economics

Initial jobless claims fell 9,000 to 214,000 in the seven days ended January 4.

Domestic supplies of natural gas dropped 44 billion cubic feet for the week ended January 3, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. However, analysts were projecting a decline of 50 billion cubic feet.

Data on money supply for the recent week will be released at 4:30 p.m. ET.