Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Rises 75 Points; Precipio Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.30 percent to 25,195.53 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.03 percent to 7,857.06. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.17 percent to 2,814.43.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Wednesday afternoon, the financial shares climbed 1.14 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included LegacyTexas Financial Group, Inc. LTXB up 6 percent, and MGIC Investment Corporation MTG up 7 percent.

In trading on Wednesday, real estate shares fell 0.75 percent.

Top Headline

Morgan Stanley MS reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter.

The bank posted quarterly profit of $1.30 per share, on revenue of $10.61 billion. Analysts projected earnings of $1.11 per share on revenue of $10.10 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Precipio, Inc. PRPO shares shot up 32 percent to $0.48 after announcing preliminary second-quarter results. The specialty cancer diagnostics company said on a preliminary basis second quarter revenue rose 213 percent from $260,000 a year ago to $815,000.

Shares of CounterPath Corporation CPAH got a boost, shooting up 51 percent to $4.16 after the company reported signing of deal with a leading contract center solution provider to deploy the company’s Hosted Stretto Platform.

Coastal Financial Corp CCB shares were also up, gaining 13 percent to $16.35. Coastal Financial priced its 2.85 million shares IPO at $14.50 per share.

Equities Trading DOWN

CTI BioPharma Corp. CTIC shares dropped 39 percent to $2.45 after the company issued pacritinib program update following Type B meeting with the U.S. FDA.

Shares of Windstream Holdings, Inc. WIN were down 12 percent to $3.71. Citigroup downgraded Windstream from Neutral to Sell.

NCI Building Systems, Inc. NCS was down, falling around 12 percent to $18.20. NCI Building and Ply Gem Parent LLC agreed to merge in an all-stock transaction.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.82 percent to $68.64 while gold traded up 0.07 percent to $1,228.10.

Silver traded down 0.17 percent Wednesday to $15.59, while copper rose 0.64 to $2.7645.

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.54 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.35 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.03 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 0.82 percent, and the French CAC 40 gained 0.46 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.65 percent.

Economics

U.S. housing starts declined 12.3 percent to an annual rate of 1.173 million for June.

Domestic crude supplies rose 5.8 million barrels for the week ended July 13, the Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts expected a decline of 3 million barrels. Gasoline stockpiles slipped 3.2 million barrels, while distillate stockpiles dropped 400,000 barrels for the week.

The Federal Reserve released its latest Beige Book report.