Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Mixed; Verizon Posts Mixed Q4 Results

Following the market opening Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.26 percent to 24,591.24 while the NASDAQ declined 0.31 percent to 7,063.95. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.04 percent to 2,642.71.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Tuesday morning, the industrial shares climbed 1.1 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Woodward, Inc. WWD up 14 percent, and Meritor Inc MTOR up 9 percent.

In trading on Tuesday, communication services shares fell 0.7 percent.

Top Headline

Verizon Communications Inc. VZ reported better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter, while sales missed estimates.

Verizon reported a bottom line of $1.12 against $1.09 estimates, with revenue of $34.28 billion falling shy of $34.39 forecasts.

Verizon said it expects 'low single-digit percentage' revenue growth in 2019.

Equities Trading UP

Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. VYGR shares got a boost, shooting up 42 percent to $11.42 after the company announced a collaboration with Neurocrine Biosciences. The company received an upfront payment of $165 million and can receive up to $1.7 billion in milestones.

Shares of Sanmina Corporation SANM shot up 21 percent to $32.98 after the company reported better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter and issued strong second-quarter guidance. Sanmina also reported that CFO David Anderson will retire and the company has begun search for a permanent replacement.

Meritor, Inc. MTOR shares were also up, gaining 9 percent to $20.65 after the company reported upbeat Q1 earnings.

Equities Trading DOWN

GameStop Corp. GME shares dropped 25 percent to $11.56 after the company said it is no longer pursuing sale of the firm due to a 'lack of available financing on terms that would be commercially acceptable to a prospective acquiror.'

Shares of Cancer Genetics, Inc. CGIX were down 26 percent to $0.2280. Cancer Genetics priced its 15.21 million share public offering of common stock at $0.23 per share.

Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. KNSA was down, falling around 8 percent to $19.89. Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals commenced a public offering of 8 million Class A shares, with all the shares earmarked for the offering being sold by the company.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1 percent to $52.51 while gold traded up 0.35 percent to $1,313.90.

Silver traded up 0.67 percent Tuesday to $15.87, while copper rose 0.82 percent to $2.702.

Eurozone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 climbed 1 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index gained 0.78 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.63 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 0.22 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 0.76 percent while U.K. shares rose 1.4 percent.

Economics

The Federal Open Market Committee will begin its two-day policy meeting today.
The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index declined 1.8 percent during the first three weeks of January versus December.

The S&P/CaseShiller home price index rose 0.3 percent for November versus October.

The Conference Board consumer confidence index declined to 120.2 in January, versus revised reading of 126.6 in December.

The Treasury is set to auction 52-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury will auction 7-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.