Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Chinanet Gains Following Q4 Results; SeaChange Shares Fall

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.79 percent to 24,768.33 while the NASDAQ climbed 1.63 percent to 7,272.87. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.96 percent to 2,703.67.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Tuesday afternoon, the information technology shares climbed 2.05 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included IntriCon Corporation IIN, up 22 percent, and Twitter, Inc. TWTR, up 11 percent.

In trading on Tuesday, financial shares rose by just 0.03 percent.

Top Headline

Goldman Sachs Group Inc GS reported better-than-expected profit for its first quarter.

The bank said it earned $6.95 per share in the first quarter on revenue of $10.04 billion versus expectations of $5.58 per share on revenue of $8.74 billion.

Goldman Sachs increased its dividend from $0.75 per share to $0.80 per share.

Equities Trading UP

Chinanet Online Holdings Inc CNET shares shot up 36 percent to $3.37 following Q4 results. ChinaNet Online reported a Q4 loss of $0.50 per share on revenue of $15.43 million.

Shares of IntriCon Corporation IIN got a boost, shooting up 21 percent to $23.625. Stifel Nicolaus initiated coverage on IntriCon with a Buy rating and a $35.00 price target.

Netflix, Inc. NFLX shares were also up, gaining 10 percent to $337.63 after the company reported better-than-expected sales for its first quarter Net streaming additions came in at 7.41 million, also beating estimates by nearly 1 million. The company issued strong second-quarter guidance.

Equities Trading DOWN

Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. APLS shares dropped 14 percent to $25.77 after the company reported a proposed offering of common stock.

Shares of Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. BLCM were down 10 percent to $8.05 after the company reported a 7 million share common stock offering.

SeaChange International, Inc. SEAC was down, falling around 9 percent to $2.81 after reporting a fourth-quarter earnings and sales beat, but downbeat guidance.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.12 percent to $66.30 while gold traded down 0.10 percent to $1,349.30.

Silver traded up 0.59 percent Tuesday to $16.775, while copper fell 0.26 percent to $3.109.

Eurozone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.80 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.39 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 1.37 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 1.57 percent, and the French CAC 40 gained 0.76 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.39 percent.

Economics

U.S. housing starts rose 1.9 percent to an annual pace of 1.32 million in March. Economists were expecting a 1.27 million rate.

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index rose 0.5 percent during the first week of April versus March.

U.S. industrial production rose 0.5 percent for March, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.3 percent growth.