Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Drops 600 Points; Atomera Shares Plummet

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 2.35 percent to 24,997.03 while the NASDAQ declined 1.68 percent to 7,297.08 . The S&P also fell, dropping 2.47 percent to 2,716.78 .

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Thursday afternoon, the communication services shares slipped by just 0.03 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Sify Technologies Limited SIFY up 4 percent, and HUYA Inc. HUYA up 8 percent.

In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell 2.06 percent.

Top Headline

Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. WBA reported upbeat earnings for its fourth quarter, while sales missed estimates.

Walgreens posted quarterly earnings of $1.48 per share on revenue of $33.44 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $1.45 per share on sales of $33.78 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Murphy Oil Corporation MUR shares shot up 12 percent to $35.4925 after the company late Wednesday announced a joint venture with Petrobas America.

Shares of Green Plains Inc. GPRE got a boost, shooting up 17 percent to $18.76 after the company agreed to sell 3 ethanol plants to Valero Renewable Fuels for $300 million in cash plus $28 million of working capital.

Allogene Therapeutics, Inc. ALLO shares were also up, gaining 34 percent to $24.19. Allogene priced its IPO at $18 per share.

Equities Trading DOWN

Atomera Incorporated ATOM shares dropped 21 percent to $4.68. Atomera priced 2.625 million shares of common stock at $4.75 per share.

Shares of MagneGas Applied Technology Solutions, Inc. MNGA were down 28 percent to $0.2649 after the company priced a 21.8 million unit offering at $0.23 per unit.

Synthetic Biologics, Inc. SYN was down, falling around 37 percent to $0.914 after the company announced the pricing of its $18 million equity offering.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 2.9 percent to $71.05 while gold traded up 2.85 percent to $1,227.40.

Silver traded up 1.91 percent Thursday to $14.60, while copper rose 0.56 to $2.796.

Eurozone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 1.98 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.69 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index slipped 1.84 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX dropped 1.48 percent, and the French CAC 40 fell 1.92 percent while U.K. shares fell 1.94 percent.

Economics

The Consumer Price Index increased 0.1 percent for September, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.2 percent rise.

Initial jobless claims rose 7,000 to 214,000 in the latest week. However, economists projected a reading of 206,000.

Domestic supplies of natural gas climbed 90 billion cubic feet for the week ended October 5, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts projected a gain of 91 billion cubic feet.

U.S. crude-oil inventories rose 5.99 million barrels for the week ended October 5, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts expected a rise of 2.62 million barrels.

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