Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Rumored Apple Acquisition Of Beats Entertainment Dominates Headlines

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.08 percent to 16,564.83 while the NASDAQ gained 0.26 percent to 4,062.01. The S&P also fell however, dropping 0.1 percent to 1,875.79.

Leading and Lagging Sectors
Non-cyclical consumer goods & services shares climbed around 0.22 percent in trading on Friday. Leading the sector was strength from American Public Education APEI and XO Group XOXO. In trading on Friday, telecommunications services shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 0.41 percent.

Meanwhile, top decliners in the sector included ARC Group Worldwide ARCW, down 6.8 percent, and 8x8 EGHT, off 5.7 percent.

Top Headline
Apple AAPL is in talks to acquire headphone maker Beats Electronics, according to a Financial Times report from Thursday afternoon. The deal is rumored to be around $3.2 billion, which would make it Apple's largest acquisition to date.

Equities Trading UP
Universal Display OLED shares shot up 14.68 percent to $28.52 after the company reported stronger-than-expected Q1 results.

Shares of Polypore International PPO got a boost, shooting up 14.54 percent to $39.77 after the company reported Q1 results. DA Davidson upgraded Polypore from Neutral to Buy and lifted the price target from $36.00 to $42.00.

Groupon GRPN shares were up once again on Friday's session, gaining 7.96 percent to $6.11 following some defensive comments from Sterne Agee early in the day.

Equities Trading DOWN
Shares of Rocket Fuel FUEL were 24.67 percent to $20.95 after the company issued a weak outlook. Goldman Sachs downgraded Rocket Fuel from Buy to Neutral and cut the price target from $69.00 to $25.00.

Ubiquiti Networks UBNT shares tumbled 25.81 percent to $30.69 on Q3 results. Ubiquiti reported its quarterly earnings of $0.50 per share on revenue of $148.30 million.

Molycorp MCP also took a beating on Friday's session, falling 18.60 percent to $3.02 after the company caught a downgrade from JP Morgan to an Underweight rating from Neutral.

Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded down 0.26 percent to $100.00, while gold traded up 0.02 percent to $1,288.10.

Silver traded down 0.25 percent Friday to $19.14, while copper rose 0.73 percent to $3.08.

Eurozone
European shares were lower today.

The eurozone's STOXX 600 dipped 0.33 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.11 percent, while Italy's FTSE MIB Index slipped 1.66 percent.

Meanwhile, the German DAX declined 0.28 percent and the French CAC 40 tumbled 0.66 percent while UK shares dropped 0.41 percent.

Economics
US wholesale inventories rose 1.10% in March, versus economists' expectations for a 0.50% gain.