Mid-Day Market Update: Dow Tumbles Over 100 Points; Signature Bank Shares Gain On Strong Earnings

Midway through trading Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.77 percent to 16,331.22 while the NASDAQ surged 0.12 percent to 4,202.52. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.19 percent to 1,835.20.

Top Headline
Verizon Communications VZ swung to a profit in the fourth quarter.

Verizon posted a quarterly profit of $5.07 billion, or $1.76 per share, versus a year-ago loss of $4.23 billion, or $1.48 per share. Its adjusted earnings climbed to $0.66 per share from $0.38 per share.

Its revenue surged to $31.07 billion from $30.05 billion. However, analysts were estimating earnings of $0.62 per share on revenue of $31.04 billion.

Equities Trading UP
Signature Bank SBNY shot up 13.17 percent to $124.60 as the company reported upbeat Q4 earnings.

Shares of Liquidity Services LQDT got a boost, shooting up 6.30 percent to $22.94 after the company received follow-on contract from the US Defense Logistics Agency.

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals IRWD was also up, gaining 7.19 percent to $13.57 on better-than-expected Q4 profit.

Equities Trading DOWN
Shares of Expedia EXPE were down 4.19 percent to $67.72. Search Metrics reported that Expedia may have lost 25% of their search visibility in Google.

CNOOC CEO shares tumbled 6.41 percent to $166.86 after the company reported its business strategy and development plan for 2014.

FireEye FEYE was down, falling 5.18 percent to $69.76 after JP Morgan downgraded the stock from Overweight to Neutral.

Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 0.60 percent to $94.52, while gold traded up 0.06 percent to $1,240.90.

Silver traded down 0.84 percent Tuesday to $19.89, while copper rose 0.24 percent to $3.35.

Eurozone
European shares were mixed today. The Spanish Ibex Index dropped 0.92 percent, while Italy's FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.11 percent. Meanwhile, the German DAX surged 0.15 percent and the French CAC 40 jumped 0.02 percent while U.K. shares dropped 0.04 percent.

Economics
On the economics calendar Tuesday, there is no important data due out.