Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Down 1.8%; Waters Shares Gain On Upbeat Earnings

Toward the end of trading Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.43 percent to 24,509.20 while the NASDAQ declined 0.26 percent to 7,002.05. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.07 percent to 2,631.12.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Wednesday afternoon, the utilities shares climbed 0.7 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Genie Energy Ltd GNE up 4 percent, and Connecticut Water Service Inc CTWS up 3 percent.

In trading on Wednesday, energy shares fell 1.7 percent.

Top Headline

Procter & Gamble Co PG reported better-than-expected results for its second quarter and raised its sales forecast for the full year.

Procter & Gamble posted quarterly earnings of $1.25 per share on revenue of $17.438 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $1.21 per share on revenue of $17.14 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Auris Medical Holding AG EARS shares got a boost, shooting up 17 percent to $0.4659 after the company announced publication of data showing promotion of memory restoration in mice.

Shares of Waters Corporation WAT shot up 11 percent to $224.90 after the company posted upbeat Q4 results and issued a strong full-year forecast.

Accuray Incorporated ARAY shares were also up, gaining 12 percent to $4.44 after the company reported stronger-than-expected Q2 results.

Equities Trading DOWN

Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. RNN shares dropped 43 percent to $0.5750. Rexahn priced its 10.75 million unit offering at $0.80 per share.

Shares of Bellerophon Therapeutics, Inc. BLPH were down 23 percent to $0.6801 after the company priced a 10 million share common stock offering at $0.70 per share.

Avalon GloboCare Corp. AVCO was down, falling around 49 percent to $6.35 after climbing 124.11 percent on Tuesday.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.8 percent to $52.06 while gold traded up 0.08 percent to $1,290.50.

Silver traded up 0.29 percent Wednesday to $15.37, while copper fell 0.09 percent to $2.657.

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 slipped 0.06 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index climbed 1.01 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.19 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX dropped 0.17 percent, and the French CAC 40 declined 0.15 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.85 percent.

Economics

The MBA's index of mortgage application activity declined 2.7 percent in the week ended January 18, 2019.

The FHFA house price index rose 0.4 percent month-over-month in November.

The Richmond Fed manufacturing index rose to -2.00 for January, versus prior reading of -8.00. However, economists were expecting a reading of -6.00.