Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Mixed; Fastenal Profit Tops Estimates

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.11 percent to 26185.54 while the NASDAQ declined 0.08 percent to 7957.66. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.10 percent to 2,891.29.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Thursday morning, the financial shares rose 0.8 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Customers Bancorp, Inc. CUBI up 5 percent, and Sirius International Insurance Group, Ltd. SG up 5 percent.

In trading on Thursday, health care shares fell 0.5 percent.

Top Headline

Fastenal Company FAST reported stronger-than-expected earnings for its first quarter.

Fastenal's first-quarter adjusted earnings came in at 68 cents per share on sales of $1.309 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of 67 per share on sales of $1.31 billion.

Equities Trading UP

China Bat Group, Inc. GLG shares got a boost, shooting up 66 percent to $3.35 after the company signed an agreement with Liten Group to establish a strategic partnership in the fields of automobile sourcing channels, automobile finance and car rental.

Shares of Future FinTech Group Inc. FTFT shot up 151 percent to $2.02 after the company announced the establishment of a subsidiary to expand its chain cloud mall business.

Papa Murphy's Holdings, Inc. FRSH shares were also up, gaining 31 percent to $6.41 after the company announced it will be acquired by MYT Food Group for $6.45 per share.

Equities Trading DOWN

China Jo-Jo Drugstores, Inc. CJJD shares dropped 43 percent to $1.77 after announcing a $10 million registered direct offering.

Shares of ATA Inc. ATAI were down 20 percent to $3.10 in a potential sell off following a recent rally on news of the company entering into preliminary agreements to acquire a leading Chinese service provider.

Helius Medical Technologies, Inc. HSDT was down, falling around 14 percent to $1.8099. Helius Medical Technologies shares tumbled Wednesday after the FDA declined the company's request for its De Novo classification and 510(k) clearance of the PoNS device. Oppenheimer downgraded Helius Medical Tech from Outperform to Perform.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.1 percent to $63.92 while gold traded down 0.9 percent to $1,302.10.

Silver traded down 1.6 percent Thursday to $15.00, while copper fell 0.7 percent to $2.9045.

Eurozone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.2 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.1 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.1 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 0.3 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.8 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.1 percent.

Economics

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is set to speak in Leesburg, Virginia.

Initial jobless claims dropped 8,000 to 196,000 last week. However, economists were projecting a reading of 211,000.

The Producer Price Index rose 0.6 percent for March, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.3 percent increase.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage will be released at 10:30 a.m. ET.

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

Federal Reserve Member of the Board of Governors Michelle Bowman is set to speak in San Francisco, California at 4:00 p.m. ET.

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