Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Rite Aid Shares Fall on Same-Store Sales as Conns Continues to Rise

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.44 percent to 15,820.24 while the NASDAQ declined 0.17 percent to 4,031.64. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.44 percent to 1,784.52.

Top Headline
Dollar General (NYSE: DG) reported a 14% rise in its third-quarter profit.

Dollar General's quarterly profit surged to $237.4 million, or $0.74 per share, versus a year-ago profit of $207.7 million, or $0.62 per share. Its adjusted earnings surged to $0.72 per share versus $0.63 per share.

Its revenue climbed to $4.4 billion from $4.0 billion. However, analysts were projecting earnings of $0.70 per share on revenue of $4.4 billion. For the full year, Dollar General lifted the lower end of its earnings forecast to $3.18 to $3.22 per share, versus its earlier forecast of $3.15 to $3.22 per share.

Equities Trading UP

Conns (NASDAQ:

CONN

) shot up 21.21 percent to $70.68 after the company reported upbeat Q3 results and raised its outlook.

Shares of Methode Electronics (NYSE: MEI) were also up, gaining a staggering 42.94 percent to $35.25 after the company crushed estimates on the bottom line while beating strongly on the top line.

Mattress Firm Holding (NASDAQ:

MFRM

) was also up, gaining 12.11 percent to $38.38 after the company reported upbeat Q3 results and issued a strong FY14 earnings forecast.

Equities Trading DOWN
Shares of Francesca's Holdings (NASDAQ: FRAN) were down 4.90 percent to $17.21 after the company reported issued a weak Q4 forecast.

J.C.Penney (NYSE:

JCP

) was also down, falling 7.56 percent to $8.93 after fund manager Kyle Bass announced that he had liquidated his stake in the firm.

Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD) shares were down as well, dropping 7.25 percent to $5.57 after reporting a same store sales increase of 2.8 percent for the month of November, disappointing the street.

Commodities

In commodity news,

oil traded up 0.27 percent

to $97.46, while gold traded down 1.61 percent to $1,227.50.

Silver traded down 1.87 percent Thursday to $19.32, while copper fell 0.82 percent to $3.22.

Eurozone

European shares

were lower

today. The Spanish Ibex Index tumbled 1.51 percent, while Italy's FTSE MIB Index declined 1.43 percent. Meanwhile, the German DAX dropped 0.42 percent and the French CAC 40 declined 0.93 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.06 percent.

Economics
US jobless claims declined by 23,000 to 298,000 in the week ended November 30, from a revised 321,000 in the earlier week. However, economists were projecting claims to increase to 320,000.

The U.S. economy expanded by an annual rate of 3.6% in the third quarter, versus an initial reading of 2.8%.

U.S. factory orders declined 0.90% in October, versus economists' expectations for a 1.00% drop.

The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index rose to minus 31.3 in the week ended December 1, versus minus 33.7 in the previous week.

Supplies of natural gas fell 162 billion cubic feet for the week ended November 29, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. However, analysts were expecting a decline of 139 billion cubic feet to 143 billion cubic feet.

Data on money supply will be released at 4:30 p.m. ET.

DGDollar General Corp

$122.51-1.99%

Overview

MEIMethode Electronics Inc

$5.77-0.17%

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