Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Duluth Holdings Drops Following Downbeat Q4 Results; Triumph Group Shares Climb

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.09 percent to 26409.02 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.46 percent to 7927.87. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.33 percent to 2888.88.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Friday afternoon, the energy shares rose 1.7 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Quintana Energy Services Inc QES up 10 percent, and Teekay Offshore Partners L.P. TOO up 12 percent.

In trading on Friday, materials shares fell 0.1 percent.

Top Headline

The U.S. economy added 196,000 new jobs in March, far exceeding estimates of 175,000 and a previous mark of 33,000.

The figures contributed to quarterly employment growth averaging 180,000 per month — short of 2018’s per-month growth of 223,000. As forecasted, the unemployment rate remained at 3.8 percent.

Equities Trading UP

Triumph Group, Inc. TGI shares got a boost, shooting up 14 percent to $24.33 after the company announced its exploring alternatives for its Aerospace Structures business unit in efforts to reshape portfolio through debt reduction and cash generation.

Shares of Vital Therapies, Inc. VTL shot up 143 percent to $0.5085 after the company announced 98.82 percent of its stockholders voted to approve proposals to merge the company with German biotech company Immunic AG.

Aehr Test Systems AEHR shares were also up, gaining 17 percent to $1.7504 after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 results. The company also received $2.1 million for a follow-on order of FOX-XP wafer level test and burn-in system for the production of photonics devices.

Equities Trading DOWN

LivaNova PLC LIVN shares dropped 27 percent to $70.29 after the company provided Q1 sales guidance below analyst estimates.

Shares of Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. SYRS were down 23 percent to $7.49 after the company priced its 8.667 million share and warrant offering at $7.50 per share.

Duluth Holdings Inc. DLTH was down, falling around 25 percent to $17.75 after the company reported downbeat results for its fourth quarter and issued weak FY19 earnings forecast.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.5 percent to $63.05 while gold traded up 0.1 percent to $1,295.90.

Silver traded down 0.1 percent Friday to $15.07, while copper fell 0.7 percent to $2.891.

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.09 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.25 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.24 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 0.18 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.23 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.61 percent.

Economics

The U.S. economy added 196,000 new jobs in March. However, economists were expecting a gain of 175,000 jobs. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.8 percent last month.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs rose by 15 to 831 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.

Data on consumer credit for February will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.

Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Raphael Bostic is set to speak in Atlanta, Georgia at 3:30 p.m. ET.