Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Domino's Pizza Misses Q4 Views

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.39 percent to 25,852.94 while the NASDAQ declined 0.77 percent to 7,431.52. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.49 percent to 2,771.18.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Thursday morning, the utilities shares rose 0.01 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included PG&E Corporation PCG up 3 percent, and Spark Energy Inc SPKE up 1 percent.

In trading on Thursday, communication services shares fell 0.9 percent.

Top Headline

Domino's Pizza DPZ reported downbeat results for its fourth quarter.

Domino's Pizza said it earned $2.62 per share in the fourth quarter on revenue of $1.082 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $2.70 per share and revenue of $1.1 billion. U.S. same-store sales rose 5.6 percent, while international same-store sales gained 2.4 percent.

Domino's Pizza raised its quarterly dividend by 18 percent to 65 cents a share.

Equities Trading UP

Immune Design Corp. IMDZ shares got a boost, shooting up 309 percent to $5.81 after Merck & Co., Inc. MRK announced plans to acquire the company at $5.85 per share in cash or $300 million.

Shares of Career Education Corporation CECO shot up 22 percent to $17.00 after reporting upbeat Q4 results.

Zosano Pharma Corporation ZSAN shares were also up, gaining 20 percent to $2.64 after the company reported completion of final milestone for the long-term study of Qtrypta for the acute treatment of migraine disease.

Equities Trading DOWN

Libbey Inc. LBY shares dropped 34 percent to $3.78 after reporting Q4 results.

Shares of Carbon Black, Inc CBLK were down 23 percent to $12.74 after the company issued Q1 EPS and sales guidance under analyst estimates. JP Morgan downgraded Carbon Black from Overweight to Neutral and lowered the price target from $30 to $15.

ReWalk Robotics Ltd. RWLK was down, falling around 18 percent to $0.2485 after the company announced a 4.4 million share stock offering priced at $0.23 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.4 percent to $56.90 while gold traded down 0.7 percent to $1,338.80.

Silver traded down 1.6 percent Thursday to $16.02, while copper fell 0.6 percent to $2.903.

Eurozone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.2 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.19 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 0.27 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 0.25 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.01 percent while U.K. shares fell 1 percent.

Economics

U.S. durable goods orders rose 1.2 percent in December, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.8 percent increase.
Initial jobless claims dropped 23,000 to 216,000 in the latest week. However, economists were expecting a reading of 229,000.

The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index declined to a reading of -4.1 in February, compared to 17 in the previous month. However, economists were projecting a reading of 15.6.

The flash reading of the IHS Markit manufacturing PMI dropped to 53.7 in February, versus a reading of 54.9 in January.

Existing-home sales fell 1.2 percent at an annual rate of 4.94 million in January.

The index of leading economic indicators declined 0.1 percent for February.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is schedule for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The EIA’s weekly report on petroleum inventories will be released at 11:00 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 8-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

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