Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Natural Grocers Drops On Disappointing Earnings; Yelp Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.19 percent to 22,067.07 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.08 percent to 6,345.42. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.10 percent to 2,474.53.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Friday afternoon, the basic materials sector proved to be a source of strength for the market. Leading the sector was strength from Intrepid Potash, Inc. IPI and L.B. Foster Co FSTR.

In trading on Friday, utilities shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 0.32 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Genie Energy Ltd GNE, down 3 percent, and SCANA Corporation SCG, down 3 percent.

Top Headline

CIGNA Corporation CI reported stronger-than-expected earnings for its second quarter.

CIGNA reported Q2 adjusted earnings of $2.91 per share, on sales of $10.3 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $2.48 on revenue of $10.27 billion.

Cigna raised its FY17 adjusted earnings outlook to $9.75 to $10.05 per share.

Equities Trading UP

Yelp Inc YELP shares shot up 27 percent to $39.84 after the company reported upbeat Q2 results and disclosed a partnership with GrubHub Inc GRUB. Yelp announced plans to sell its Eat24 business.

Shares of Weight Watchers International, Inc. WTW got a boost, shooting up 23 percent to $40.82 after the company posted stronger-than-expected results for its second quarter.

Boingo Wireless Inc WIFI shares were also up, gaining 25 percent to $18.89 following Q2 results. Boingo Wireless reported a Q2 net loss of $0.20 per share on sales of $49.033 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

Electronics For Imaging, Inc. EFII shares dropped 43 percent to $26.96. Electronics For Imaging disclosed that it has postponed Q2 release due to accounting issues related to revenue recognition. Morgan Stanley downgraded Electronics for Imaging from Equal-Weight to Underweight.

Shares of Autobytel Inc. ABTL were down 26 percent to $8.05 as the company posted downbeat Q2 results and lowered its FY17 outlook. Barrington Research downgraded Autobytel from Outperform to Market Perform.

Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage Inc NGVC was down, falling around 33 percent to $5.70 as the company posted downbeat quarterly results and lowered its FY17 earnings guidance.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.08 percent to $49.56 while gold traded down 0.79 percent to $1,264.30.

Silver traded down 2.22 percent Friday to $16.26, while copper rose 0.24 percent to $2.885.

Eurozone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.95 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.04 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.65 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 1.18 percent, and the French CAC 40 climbed 1.42 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.49 percent.

Economics

The U.S. economy added 209,000 new jobs in July, while unemployment rate dropped to 4.3 percent. Economists projected a gain of 183,000 jobs for July.

U.S. trade deficit declined 5.9 percent to $43.6 billion in June, compared to $46.4 billion in May. However, economists were expecting a $44 billion deficit. Exports increased 1.2 percent to $194.4 billion, while imports declined 0.2 percent to $238 billion.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs declined by 1 to 765 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.