Mid-Afternoon Market Update: GameStop Drops After Mixed Q2 Report; Pure Storage Shares Surge

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.36 percent to 21,860.94 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.29 percent to 6,276.21. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.39 percent to 2,448.38.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Friday afternoon, the non-cyclical consumer goods & services shares climbed by 0.74 percent.

In trading on Friday, technology shares rose by just 0.1 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Revolution Lighting Technologies Inc RVLT, down 4 percent, and Sequans Communications SA ADR SQNS down 5 percent.

Top Headline

Big Lots, Inc. BIG reported stronger-than-expected earnings for its second quarter.

Big Lots earned $0.67 per share in the second quarter on revenue of $1.22 billion. However, Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to earn $0.62 per share on revenue of $1.21 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Adamas Pharmaceuticals Inc ADMS shares shot up 40 percent to $19.94 following announcement of the FDA approval of GOCOVRI.

Shares of XOMA Corporation XOMA got a boost, shooting up 27 percent to $11.31 after the company disclosed that it has licensed the global commercial rights to gevokizumab and its IL-1beta intellectual property portfolio.

Pure Storage Inc PSTG shares were also up, gaining 17 percent to $14.65 as the company reported stronger-than-expected results for its second quarter and raised its sales outlook.

Equities Trading DOWN

Aceto Corporation ACET shares dropped 25 percent to $11.96. Aceto reported Q4 adjusted earnings of $0.27 per share on revenue of $194.6 million.

Shares of GameStop Corp. GME were down 12 percent to $19.24 after the company reported weaker-than-expected earnings for its second quarter. However, the company's sales exceeded analysts' estimates.

Tahoe Resources Inc TAHO was down, falling around 18 percent to $4.49 after the Guatemalan Constitutional Court issued a decision upholding the lower court's decision to provisionally suspend the mining license of Minera San Rafael.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.48 percent to $47.66 while gold traded up 0.33 percent to $1,296.30.

Silver traded up 0.46 percent Friday to $17.125, while copper rose 0.08 percent to $3.059.

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 0.12 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.12 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.08 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX declined 0.11 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 0.17 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.08 percent.

Economics

U.S. durable goods orders declined 6.8 percent for July, versus economists’ expectations for a 6 percent drop.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs declined by 4 to 759 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.