Mid-Day Market Update: Crude Oil Up Over 1%; Pier 1 Imports Shares Plummet

Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.11 percent to 24,144.57 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.37 percent to 7,472.58. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.27 percent to 2,706.83.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

On Thursday, the telecommunication services shares surged 1.06 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. TKC up 5 percent, and China Telecom Corporation Limited CHA up 3 percent.

In trading on Thursday, health care shares fell 0.59 percent.

Top Headline

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc WBA reported better-than-expected results for its third quarter on Thursday.

Walgreens posted Q3 earnings of $1.53 per share on sales of $34.334 billion. Analysts expected earnings of $1.48 per share on revenue of $34.16 billion.

Walgreens Boots Alliance announced a $10 billion buyback plans and raised its quarterly dividend from $0.40 to $0.44 per share.

Equities Trading UP

Neuronetics, Inc. STIM shares shot up 47 percent to $25.02. Neurostimulation device maker Neuronetics priced its IPO of 5.5 million shares at $17 per share.

Shares of Madison Square Garden Company MSG got a boost, shooting up 11 percent to $294.3375 after the company disclosed that its board has unanimously approved plans to explore possible spinoff. The company plans to separate sports businesses from live entertainment units to create 2 publicly-traded companies.

Progress Software Corporation PRGS shares were also up, gaining 17 percent to $40.712 following Q2 results. Benchmark upgraded Progress Software from Sell to Hold.

Equities Trading DOWN

Arsanis, Inc. ASNS shares dropped 74 percent to $4.7837 after the company announced plans to discontinue its Phase 2 trial of ASN100.

Shares of Differential Brands Group Inc. DFBG were down 29 percent to $3.8801. Differential Brands Group shares jumped over 500 percent Wednesday following deal to buy majority of North American unit of Global Brands Group for $1.38 billion.

Pier 1 Imports, Inc. PIR was down, falling around 20 percent to $2.39 after the company reported weak sales for its first quarter. Comps were down 8.2 percent in the quarter. The company sees comps down 6-7 percent in the second quarter.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.22 percent to $73.65 while gold traded down 0.33 percent to $1,252.00.

Silver traded down 1.28 percent Thursday to $16.145, while copper fell 1.18 to $2.972.

Eurozone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 0.88 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.81 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.61 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX dropped 1.48 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 1.05 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.08 percent.

Economics

U.S. economy expanded at an annual rate of 2 percent in the first quarter,.

Initial jobless claims rose 9,000 to 227,000 in the latest week. Economists were expecting claims to reach 220,000.

Domestic supplies of natural gas climbed 66 billion cubic feet for the week ended June 22, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts projected forecast a gain of 74 billion cubic feet.

The Treasury is set to auction 7-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Data on farm prices for May will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.

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