Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Mostly Flat; FactSet Research Misses Q4 Estimates

Following the market opening Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.1 percent to 26,592.19 while the NASDAQ declined 0.04 percent to 7,989.91. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.02 percent to 2,920.05.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Tuesday morning, the energy shares rose 0.61 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Basic Energy Services, Inc. BAS up 10 percent, and Gran Tierra Energy Inc. GTE up 6 percent.

In trading on Tuesday, utilities shares fell 0.72 percent.

Top Headline

FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE: FDS reported weaker-than-expected results for its fourth quarter.

FactSet Research posted Q4 adjusted earnings of $2.20 per share on sales of $345.861 million. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $2.21 per share on sales of $346.51 million.

Equities Trading UP

Sonic Corp. SONC shares shot up 19 percent to $43.44 after the company agreed to be acquired by Inspire Brands for $43.50 per share.

Shares of XO Group Inc. XOXO got a boost, shooting up 26 percent to $34.71 after the company reported merger with WeddingWire at $35 per share in cash.

Jaguar Health, Inc. JAGX shares were also up, gaining 103 percent to $1.3168 after reporting a distribution, license and supply agreement with Knight therapeutics for Mytesi.

Equities Trading DOWN

TG Therapeutics, Inc. TGTX shares dropped 34 percent to $6.15 after the company issued an update regarding UNITY-CLL Phase 3 trial. The independent Data Safety Monitoring Board advised the company that interim analysis of overall response rate could not be conducted, as data were not sufficiently mature to conduct analysis.

Shares of Opiant Pharmaceuticals, Inc. OPNT were down 18 percent to $17.550. Opiant Pharmaceuticals priced its 705,882 share common stock offering at $17 per share.

Neogen Corporation NEOG was down, falling around 13 percent to $77.05. Neogen posted Q1 earnings of $0.29 per share on sales of $99.63 million.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.47 percent to $72.42 while gold traded up 0.1 percent to $1,205.60.

Silver traded up 0.24 percent Tuesday to $14.375, while copper rose 0.02 to $2.8365.

Eurozone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 climbed 0.44 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.06 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index jumped 1.11 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 0.22 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.12 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.57 percent.

Economics

The Federal Open Market Committee begins its two-day policy meeting.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-City home price index increased 5.9 percent year-over-year for July, versus a revised 6.4 percent gain in June.

The Conference Board consumer confidence index rose to 138.4 for September.

The Richmond Fed manufacturing index declined to 22.00 in September, versus prior reading of 24.00.

The Treasury is set to auction 4-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury will auction 5-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.