Mid-Day Market Update: Supervalu Surges On Acquisition News; Superconductor Technologies Shares Tumble

Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.58 percent to 25,561.59 while the NASDAQ declined 0.72 percent to 7,875.35. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.10 percent to 2,843.17.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

On Thursday, the utilities shares climbed 1.01 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included PG&E Corporation PCG up 4 percent, and Edison International EIX up 2 percent.

In trading on Thursday, information technology shares fell 1.52 percent.

Top Headline

Facebook, Inc. FB reported upbeat earnings for its second quarter, while sales missed estimates.

Earnings came in at $1.74, beating estimates by 2 cents. Sales came in at $13.03 billion, missing estimates by $322 million. Daily active users were up 11 percent year-over-year in the quarter.

Equities Trading UP

Supervalu Inc. SVU shares shot up 64 percent to $31.97 after the company agreed to be acquired by United Natural Foods UNFI for $32.50 per share in cash.

Shares of Bridgepoint Education, Inc. BPI got a boost, shooting up 42 percent to $11.5076 after the company posted upbeat Q2 results.

PCM, Inc. PCMI shares were also up, gaining 27 percent to $19.975 following a second-quarter earnings beat.

Equities Trading DOWN

MoSys, Inc. MOSY shares dropped 43 percent to $1.23. MoSys posted Q2 earnings of $0.06 per share on sales of $4.6 million. The company also issued weak Q3 sales forecast.

Shares of Superconductor Technologies Inc. SCON were down 40 percent to $3.03 after the company reported pricing of $9 million public offering.

Nielsen Holdings plc NLSN was down, falling around 27 percent to $21.73 after the company disclosed quarterly financial results. The company also revealed that its CEO Mitch Barns will retire at the end of year.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.65 percent to $69.79 while gold traded down 0.44 percent to $1,235.60.

Silver traded down 0.64 percent Thursday to $15.49, while copper fell 0.07 to $2.8155.

Eurozone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 climbed 0.80 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.65 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 1.33 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 1.91 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.72 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.10 percent.

Economics

U.S. durable goods orders increased 1 percent for June.

The U.S. trade deficit in goods increased 5.5 percent to $68.3 billion in June.

Initial jobless claims rose 9,000 to 217,000 in the latest week. However, economists projected claims to reach 215,000.

The Treasury will auction 7-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.

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