Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Rises 50 Points; Diana Containerships Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.23 percent to 23,931.93 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.13 percent to 6,966.00. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.18 percent to 2,589.59.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Thursday afternoon, the real estate shares climbed 1.3 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Rafael Holdings Inc RFL up 14 percent, and QTS Realty Trust Inc QTS up 5 percent.

In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell 0.8 percent.

Top Headline

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc BBBY reported upbeat profit for its third quarter and issued strong earnings forecast for 2019.

Bed Bath & Beyond posted quarterly earnings of $0.18 per share on sales of $3.03 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.17 per share on sales of $3.04 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Inpixon INPX shares got a boost, shooting up 42 percent to $4.65 after the company's Indoor Positioning Analytics Sensor 4000SE was chosen for a "Smart School" safety network.

Shares of Diana Containerships Inc. DCIX shot up 33 percent to $1.06 after reporting a $6 million common share buyback program.

Precipio, Inc. PRPO shares were also up, gaining 43 percent to $0.24 after the company received a United States Department of Defense order for its ICE COLD-PCR technology in mutation testing.

Equities Trading DOWN

e.l.f. Beauty, Inc. ELF shares dropped 16 percent to $8.28 after analysts at Wells Fargo downgraded the stock to 'Underperform', citing concerns that fundamentals are 'deteriorating further.'

Shares of Macy's, Inc. M were down 19 percent to $ 25.81. Macy's reported 0.7-percent comps for the November-December period, marking the second consecutive year of positive performance for the holiday period. Macy's lowered its FY18 comp guidance for owned and licensed stores, and also adjusted EPS guidance from a range of $4.10-$4.30 to $3.95-$4, while analysts on average estimate EPS of $4.23.

Cancer Genetics, Inc. CGIX was down, falling around 25 percent to $0.26 after the company priced a 13.33 million share offering at $0.225 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.25 percent to $52.23 while gold traded down 0.21 percent to $1,289.30.

Silver traded down 0.48 percent Thursday to $15.66, while copper fell 0.72 percent to $2.638.

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.34 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.38 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index surged 0.63 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 0.26 percent, and the French CAC 40 declined 0.16 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.52 percent.

Economics

Initial jobless claims fell 17,000 to 216,000 in the latest week. However, economists were expecting a 227,000 reading.

Domestic supplies of natural gas dropped 91 billion cubic feet for the week ended January 4, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts projected a fall of 84 billion cubic feet.

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

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida will speak in New York at 7:00 p.m. ET.