Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Ameri Holdings Drops After FY18 Results; Bed Bath & Beyond Shares Jump

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.25 percent to 25,581.58 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.3 percent to 7,660.67. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.34 percent to 2,807.77.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Tuesday afternoon, the energy shares climbed 1 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included RPC, Inc. RES up 6 percent, and Quintana Energy Services Inc. QES up 6 percent.

In trading on Tuesday, communication services shares rose by just 0.1 percent.

Top Headline

Carnival Corp CCL reported upbeat earnings for its first quarter, but issued weak profit outlook.

Carnival reported quarterly earnings of $0.49 per share on sales of $4.673 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.44 per share on sales of $4.31 billion.

Carnival said it expects Q2 adjusted earnings of $0.56 to $0.60 per share, versus analysts’ estimates of $0.72 per share. The company now projects 2019 adjusted earnings of $4.35 to $4.55 per share, versus previous forecast of $4.50 to $4.80 per share.

Equities Trading UP

Hunter Maritime Acquisition Corp. HUNT shares got a boost, shooting up 160 percent to $47.92 after surging 96.90 percent on Monday.

Shares of Aldeyra Therapeutics, Inc. ALDX shot up 35 percent to $9.65 following the release of the results of a late-stage study of its drug candidate for allergic conjunctivitis. Aldeyra said a Phase 3 trial, dubbed ALLEVIATE, that evaluated 0.25 percent and 0.5 percent doses of reproxalap topical ophthalmic solutions in patients with allergic conjunctivitis met the primary and key secondary endpoints for both concentrations.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. BBBY shares were also up, gaining 20 percent to $16.70 after multiple activist investors bought a 5-percent stake. Three activist investment funds -- Legion Partners Asset Management, Macellum Advisorsand Ancora Advisors -- plan to leverage their new stake in the company to launch a proxy battle, The Wall Street Journal reported. The firms are looking to replace all 12 members of the board of directors and replace CEO Steven Temares who held the job since 2003, sources told WSJ. Raymond James upgraded Bed Bath & Beyond from Market Perform to Strong Buy.

Equities Trading DOWN

AMERI Holdings, Inc. AMRH shares dropped 18 percent to $0.3524 after the company reported worse FY18 than last year. AMERI posted FY18 loss of $0.82 per share on sales of $42.998 million.

Shares of OpGen, Inc. OPGN were down 36 percent to $0.5648 after the company filed a 'Notice of Effectiveness' with the SEC. OpGen priced 9 million shares at $0.60 per share.

Can-Fite BioPharma Ltd. CANF was down, falling around 34 percent to $0.8598 after the company's phase 2 trial for advanced liver cancer did not meet its primary endpoint.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.8 percent to $59.88 while gold traded down 0.5 percent to $1,322.20.

Silver traded down 0.9 percent Tuesday to $15.435, while copper rose 0.2 percent to $2.863.

Eurozone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 surged 0.77 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.03 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.8 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 0.64 percent, and the French CAC 40 climbed 0.89 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.26 percent.

Economics

Housing starts fell 8.7 percent at an annual pace of 1.16 million in February. However, economists were expecting a 1.21 million rate. Permits declined 1.6 percent to an annual rate of 1.3 million.

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index rose 0.1 percent during the first four weeks of March versus February.

The S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller home price index rose 3.6 percent year-over-year in January, versus a 4.1 percent rise in the prior month.

The FHFA house price index rose 0.6 percent in January, versus a 0.3 percent increase in the prior month.

The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell to 124.10 in March, versus previous reading of 131.40. Economists expected a reading of 132.00.

The Richmond Fed's manufacturing index fell to 2.00 for March, versus prior reading of 16.00. However, economists projected a reading of 12.00.

Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren is set to speak in Hong Kong at 8:30 p.m. ET.