Mid-Afternoon Market Update: NASDAQ Turns Higher; CyberArk Software Shares Gain On Upbeat Earnings

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.1 percent to 25,516.54 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.31 percent to 7,443.48. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.02 percent to 2,752.42.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Thursday afternoon, the energy shares climbed 0.4 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Precision Drilling Corporation PDS up 16 percent, and Marathon Oil Corporation MRO up 10 percent.

In trading on Thursday, financial shares fell 1.1 percent.

Top Headline

Cisco Systems, Inc. CSCO reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter on Wednesday.

Second-quarter earnings came in at 73 cents per share, beating estimates by a penny. Sales came in at $12.4 billion, missing estimates by $10 million.

The company reported strong third-quarter earnings guidance and expects sales growth of 4-6 percent year-over-year. Cisco also added $15 billion to its buyback plan.

Equities Trading UP

Invacare Corporation IVC shares got a boost, shooting up 67 percent to $8.86 after reporting strong Q4 results.

Shares of Arcimoto, Inc. FUV shot up 44 percent to $4.9000. The stock may be moving in sympathy with Electrameccanica, which spiked after a Bloomberg article highlighted its Solo electric vehicle. Arcimoto makes similar electric vehicles.

CyberArk Software Ltd. CYBR shares were also up, gaining 20 percent to $103.36 after the company reported upbeat Q4 results and issued strong Q1 forecast.

Equities Trading DOWN

Motif Bio plc MTFB shares dropped 73 percent to $2.7950 after the FDA said it cannot accept the company's new drug application for iclaprim in its current state and indicated additional data may be needed.

Shares of Sierra Wireless, Inc. SWIR were down 27 percent to $11.35 after the company reported downbeat Q4 results and issued weak Q1 guidance.

New Gold Inc. NGD was down, falling around 26 percent to $0.9229 after the company reported Q4 sales of $157.4 million, missing the $217.32 million estimate.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.58 percent to $54.21 while gold traded down 0.05 percent to $1,314.40.

Silver traded down 0.68 percent Thursday to $15.545, while copper rose 0.27 percent to $2.7805.

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 slipped 0.32 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.33 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 0.78 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX declined 0.69 percent, and the French CAC 40 fell 0.23 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.09 percent.

Economics

U.S. initial jobless claims increased 4,000 to 239,000 in the latest week. However, economists were expecting a reading of 225,000.

The Producer Price Index dropped 0.1 percent for January, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.1 percent rise.

U.S. retail sales fell 1.2 percent for December, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.1 percent rise.

U.S. business inventories fell 0.1 percent for November.

Domestic supplies of natural gas declined 78 billion cubic feet for the week ended February 8, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts projected a rise of 79 billion cubic feet.

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