Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Higher; Micron Beats Q4 Estimates

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.13 percent to 22,313.01 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.60 percent to 6,418.47. The S&P also fell, gaining 0.24 percent to 2,502.74.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Wednesday morning, the technology shares surged 0.57 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Overstock.com, Inc. OSTK, up 10 percent, and Micron Technology, Inc. MU, up 8 percent.

In trading on Wednesday, utilities shares fell 0.65 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included SCANA Corporation SCG, down 4 percent, and Companhia Paranaense de Energia (ADR) ELP down 2 percent.

Top Headline

Micron Technology, Inc. MU reported stronger-than-expected results for its fourth quarter on Tuesday.

Micron reported Q4 adjusted earnings of $2.02 per share on revenue of $6.14 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of $1.84 per share on sales of $5.96 billion.

Micron expects Q1 earnings of $1.73 to $1.87 per share on sales of $5.7 billion to $6.1 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Remark Holdings, Inc. MARK shares shot up 17 percent to $4.13 after the company reported a $1 million+ contract to provide facial and object recognition to a Chinese government owned business.

Shares of Twilio Inc TWLO got a boost, shooting up 7 percent to $29.44 following news that Amazon's AWS Pinpoint launched 2-way text messaging.

KEMET Corporation KEM shares were also up, gaining 11 percent to $21.45. S&P Dow Jones Indices reported that KEMET will join S&P SmallCap 600.

Equities Trading DOWN

Tantech Holdings Ltd TANH shares dropped 32 percent to $2.88 after the company reported a deal for registered direct placement of $6.5m in common shares and warrants.

Shares of Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises Inc BW were down 19 percent to $2.92. Babcock & Wilcox expects $10 million to $15 million of cost following a structural steel issue for a UK renewable project

Kornit Digital Ltd KRNT was down, falling around 21 percent to $13.48 after the company lowered its Q3 sales outlook. Citigroup downgraded Kornit Digital from Buy to Neutral.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.02 percent to $51.89 while gold traded down 0.88 percent to $1,290.20.

Silver traded down 0.34 percent Wednesday to $16.825, while copper rose 0.62 percent to $2.937.

Eurozone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.37 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.37 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.81 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 0.51 percent, and the French CAC 40 gained 0.23 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.32 percent.

Economics

The MBA's index of mortgage application activity rose to a reading of 231.00 in the latest week, versus prior reading of 224.70.

U.S. durable goods orders rose 1.7 percent for August, versus economists’ expectations for a 1 percent growth.

The pending home sales index declined 2.6 percent for August, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.5 percent drop.

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 will auction 5-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.

St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard will speak in Kirksville, Missouri at 1:30 p.m. ET.

Boston Federal Reserve Bank President Eric Rosengren is set to speak in New York City at 7:00 p.m. ET.