Mid-Day Market Update: Applied Materials Gains Following Earnings Beat; DryShips Shares Slide - Applied Mat (NASDAQ:AMAT)

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Midway through trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.64 percent to 17,547.03 while the NASDAQ climbed 1.36 percent to 4,776.43. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.76 percent to 2,055.48. Leading and Lagging Sectors

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Technology shares gained by 1.5 percent in trading on Friday. Top gainers in the sector included Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT), Renren Inc (NYSE: RENN), and AIXTRON SE (ADR) (NASDAQ: AIXG). In trading on Friday, basic materials shares dropped by 0.2 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included IAMGOLD Corp (USA) (NYSE: IAG), down 5 percent, and Harmony Gold Mining Co. (ADR) (NYSE: HMY), down 4 percent. Top Headline Foot Locker, Inc. (NYSE: FL) reported in-line quarterly earnings, but the company's revenue came in slightly short of analysts' expectations.Foot Locker's quarterly earnings advanced 7.8 percent to $1.39 per share from $1.29 per share in the same quarter preceding year. Street analysts also predicted the company to earn $1.39 a share.The company's revenue grew 3.7 percent to $1.987 billion from $1.916 billion in the previous year quarter. Excluding the currency impact, it would have recorded 3.9 percent growth in revenue. However, this was slightly short of the analysts' expectations of $2.0 billion. The company indicated that comparable store sales grew 2.9 percent Equities Trading UP

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Ocean Rig UDW Inc.

(NASDAQ: ORIG) shares shot up 29 percent to $2.34 after the company reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results.Shares of InterOil Corporation (USA) (NYSE: IOC) got a boost, shooting up 37 percent to $43.51 as Oil Search Ltd. agreed to acquire InterOil in a deal valued at around $2.2 billion. Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) shares were also up, gaining 13 percent to $22.46 after the company reported better-than-expected results for its second quarter and issued a strong forecast for the current quarter. Equities Trading DOWN New York & Company, Inc. (NYSE: NWY) shares dropped 42 percent to $1.71 after the company reported downbeat quarterly results. Shares of Abraxas Petroleum Corp. (NASDAQ: AXAS) were down 21 percent to $1.05. Abraxas Petroleum expected FY16 total production of 6,000 to 6,400 boepd and priced 25 million share offering at $1.00 per share. DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) was down, falling around 16 percent to $2.21. DryShips reported a Q2 loss of $0.78 per share.Commodities In commodity news, oil traded down 0.08 percent to $48.12 while gold traded down 0.26 percent to $1,251.50. Silver traded down 0.02 percent Friday to $16.49, while copper rose 0.07 percent to $2.06. Eurozone European shares were higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 rose 1.23 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.11 percent, while Italy's FTSE MIB Index gained 1.52 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 1.23 percent, and the French CAC 40 climbed 1.67 percent, while U.K. shares rose 1.70 percent. Economics U.S. existing-home sales increased 1.7 percent to an annual rate of 5.45 million in April, according to the National Association of Realtors. However, economists were expecting a 5.40 million rate.