Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Higher; Darden Restaurants Earnings Top Estimates

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.80 percent to 26,616.14 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.93 percent to 8,023.69. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.57 percent to 2,924.54.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Thursday morning, the information technology shares rose 1.18 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Net 1 UEPS Technologies, Inc. UEPS up 9 percent, and Finjan Holdings, Inc. FNJN up 6 percent.

In trading on Thursday, utilities shares fell 0.44 percent.

Top Headline

Darden Restaurants, Inc. DRI reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter and raised its FY19 guidance.

Darden posted quarterly earnings of $1.34 per share on sales of $2.06 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $1.24 per share on sales of $2.03 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Ossen Innovation Co., Ltd. OSN shares shot up 43 percent to $2.81. Ossen Innovation posted 1H earnings of $0.24 per share on sales of $70 million.

Shares of Altimmune, Inc. ALT got a boost, shooting up 95 percent to $32.14 after surging 285.48 percent on Wednesday.

New Age Beverages Corporation NBEV shares were also up, gaining 28 percent to $5.61 after surging 54.96 percent on Wednesday.

Equities Trading DOWN

Stitch Fix, Inc. SFIX shares dropped 11 percent to $41.8788. Piper Jaffray downgraded Stitch Fix from Overweight to Neutral.

Shares of Skyline Champion Corporation SKY were down 8 percent to $28.2511 after reporting a 6 million share offering of common stock by selling shareholders.

Thor Industries, Inc. THO was down, falling around 13 percent to $91.98 after the company reported weaker-than-expected profit for its fourth quarter.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.11 percent to $71.04 while gold traded up 0.17 percent to $1,210.40.

Silver traded up 0.04 percent Thursday to $14.285, while copper fell 0.04 to $2.7285.

Eurozone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.55 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.16 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.78 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 0.68 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.82 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.34 percent.

Economics

Initial jobless claims declined 3,000 to 201,000 in the latest week. However, economists were expecting a 210,000 reading.

The Philly Fed manufacturing index climbed to 22.9 in September, compared to 11.9 in August. Economists projected a reading of 17.

Existing-home sales were flat in August, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.3 percent increase.

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

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is schedule for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

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