Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Up Over 2%; Celestica Shares Fall On Earnings Miss

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.46 percent to 25,113.99 while the NASDAQ declined 0.04 percent to 7,278.87. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.18 percent to 2,709.01.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Friday afternoon, the energy shares climbed 2.2 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Weatherford International plc WFT up 17 percent, and Superior Energy Services, Inc. SPN up 14 percent.

In trading on Friday, consumer discretionary shares fell 1.2 percent.

Top Headline

Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM reported stronger-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

Exxon Mobil delivered earnings of $1.41 per share, beating estimates of $1.17 per share.

Equities Trading UP

Titan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. TTNP shares got a boost, shooting up 34 percent to $1.6516 after company announced positive results of the company's Probuphine relaunch.

Shares of Continental Materials Corporation CUO shot up 30 percent to $19.35 after the company reported the sale of substantially all the assets of Transit Mix Concrete for around $27 million.

Digi International Inc. DGII shares were also up, gaining 16 percent to $13.79 after the company beat Q1 earnings estimates and issued strong FY19 EPS guidance.

Equities Trading DOWN

Vedanta Limited VEDL shares dropped 17 percent to $9.25 after the company announced it would buy a $200 million stake in mining company Anglo American.

Shares of Celestica Inc. CLS were down 17 percent to $8.25 after the company reported weaker-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

Bottomline Technologies (de), Inc. EPAY was down, falling around 17 percent to $42.70 after the company reported Q2 results.
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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2.06 percent to $54.90 while gold traded down 0.2 percent to $1,322.60.

Silver traded down 0.85 percent Friday to $15.935, while copper fell 0.43 percent to $2.7725.

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.29 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index dropped 0.41 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 0.78 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX rose 0.07 percent, and the French CAC 40 climbed 0.53 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.74 percent.

Economics

The U.S. economy added 304,000 new jobs for January. However, economists were expecting an increase of 165,000 nonfarm jobs. The unemployment rate rose to 4 percent from 3.9 percent.

The Markit PMI manufacturing report for January is schedule for release at 9:45 a.m. ET.

The ISM manufacturing index climbed to 56.60 in January. Economists projected a reading of 54.20.

U.S. construction spending rose 0.8 percent for November, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.2 percent increase.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index dropped to 91.2 in January, versus a reading of 98.3 in December.

U.S. wholesale inventories rose 0.3 percent for November, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.5 percent increase.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs declined 15 to 847 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.