Mid-Day Market Update: Baozun Rises Following Q1 Results; Jounce Therapeutics Shares Plummet

Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.15 percent to 24,805.86 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.26 percent to 7,417.56. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.25 percent to 2,729.24.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

On Thursday, the energy shares rose 1.34 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Seadrill Limited SDRL, up 46 percent, and Sanchez Energy Corporation SN up 8 percent.

In trading on Thursday, real estate shares fell 0.34 percent.

Top Headline

Walmart Inc WMT reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter.

Walmart said it earned $1.14 per share in the first quarter on revenue of $120.7 billion versus Wall Street's estimate of $1.13 per share on revenue of $120.51 billion.

Walmart U.S. comp sales rose 2.1 percent, comp traffic rose 0.8 percent. Comp sales at Sam's Club rose 3.8 percent on a traffic growth of 5.6 percent. Online sales also grew 33 percent in the quarter which marks a reversal from the prior quarter's disappointing performance in the prior quarter.

Equities Trading UP

Carver Bancorp, Inc. CARV shares shot up 88 percent to $6.88.

Shares of Loxo Oncology, Inc. LOXO got a boost, shooting up 21 percent to $168.56. The biopharmaceutical company that focuses on medicines for patients with genetically defined cancers said its oral presentation of LOXO-292 was selected for the "Best of ASCO" program.

Baozun Inc. BZUN shares were also up, gaining 17 percent to $52.85 after reporting Q1 results.

Equities Trading DOWN

Jounce Therapeutics, Inc. JNCE shares dropped 32 percent to $12.02. Abstract of the Phase 1/2 ICONIC trial that evaluated JTX-2011 monotherapy as well as in combination with nivolumab showed that the company has met its target enrolment in its combination cohorts across four solid tumor types, namely gastric cancer, triple-negative breast cancer, head and neck squamous cell cancer and non-small cell lung cancer.

Shares of J C Penney Company Inc JCP were down 9 percent to $2.79 after the company reported downbeat Q1 results and lowered its FY2018 guidance.

Syndax Pharmaceuticals, Inc. SNDX was down, falling around 21 percent to $8.76 after the company issued updated results from Phase 2 ENCORE trial of entinostat in combo with KEYTRUDA.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.45 percent to $71.81 while gold traded down 0.22 percent to $1,288.60.

Silver traded up 0.67 percent Thursday to $16.48, while copper rose 0.65 to $3.0905.

Eurozone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.49 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.83 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.11 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX rose 0.83 percent, and the French CAC 40 climbed 0.67 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.60 percent.

Economics

Initial jobless claims increased 11,000 to 222,000 in the latest week. Economists were projecting claims to total 215,000 last week.

The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index rose to 34.4 for May, compared to 23.3 in April. Economists expected a reading of 21.9.

The index of leading economic indicators rose 0.4 percent for April.

Domestic supplies of natural gas increased 106 billion cubic feet for the week ended May 11, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts expected a gain of 104 billion cubic feet.

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan will speak at 1:30 p.m. ET.

Data on money supply for the latest week will be released at 4:30 p.m. ET.