Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Higher; BlackBerry Reports Strong Q1 Results

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.18% to 26,596.15 while the NASDAQ rose 0.71% to 7,941.00. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.16% to 2,921.94.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares rose 1.4% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Aerohive Networks, Inc. HIVE, up 40%, and Micron Technology, Inc. MU, up 13%.

In trading on Wednesday, health care shares fell 1.3%.

Top Headline

BlackBerry Ltd BB reported better-than-expected Q1 earnings and sales results.

BlackBerry reported first-quarter earnings of 1 cent per share, which beat analyst estimates by a penny. The company reported quarterly sales of $267 million, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $264.53 million.

Equities Trading UP

Aerohive Networks, Inc. HIVE shares shot up 40% to $4.45 after Extreme Networks, Inc. EXTR announced plans to acquire Aerohive for $4.45 per share in cash.

Shares of Micron Technology, Inc. MU got a boost, shooting up 13% to $37.04 after the company reported stronger-than-expected results for its third quarter.

Marathon Patent Group, Inc. MARA shares were also up, gaining 11% to $2.9685 in sympathy with a 10% rise in the price of Bitcoin this morning. Strength in the crypto space may also be linked to the recent announcement of Facebook's Libra.

Equities Trading DOWN

AeroVironment, Inc. AVAV shares tumbled 9% to $55.98 after reporting fourth-quarter results. The company reported fiscal Q4 revenue decreased 23% from last year and fiscal Q4 gross margin decreased 27% from last year.

Shares of OncoCyte Corporation OCX were down 30% to $2.7934 after the company issued a mid-year update. The company disclosed that it will require additional time to complete its ongoing CLIA Validation study of DetermaVu™.

Care.com, Inc. CRCM was down, falling 19% to $11.44. Craig-Hallum downgraded Care.com from Buy to Hold.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2% to $58.98, while gold traded down 0.3% to $1,414.10.

Silver traded up 0.1% Wednesday to $15.31, while copper fell 0.2% to $2.729.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.1%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.2%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.1%. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 0.4%, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.13% while UK shares rose 0.1%.

Economics

U.S. durable goods orders fell 1.3% for May, versus economists’ expectations for a 1% drop.

U.S. advanced trade deficit in goods increased 5.1% to $74.5 billion in May. Advanced U.S. wholesale inventories increased 0.4% in May, while retail inventories climbed 0.5% in May.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on petroleum inventories in the U.S. will be released at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 5-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.