Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Nimble Storage Rallies as Pharmacyclics Shows Weakness

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.40 percent to 16,608.03 while the NASDAQ surged 0.76 percent to 4,185.74. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.44 percent to 1,900.76. Leading and Lagging Sectors
Industrials lead the rally in US markets on Friday, with names like Nordson NDSN which gained 8.73 percent and StealthGas which rallied 7.31 percent. Healthcare proved to be a relative laggard Thursday as traders rotated out of defensive plays, with large healthcare names looking sluggish. Top Headline
Making the top of headlines Friday was Hewlett Packard's HPQ earnings leak before the close Thursday. While the report itself held little in the way of fireworks, the company did announce expanded job cuts, moving its layoffs to near 50 thousand, or almost a sixth of the company's workforce. Equities Trading UP
Parsley Energy PE showed strength Friday, gaining 20.05 percent to $22.20 after the company's IPO impressed the street. Shares of Isis Pharmaceuticals ISIS were up as well, gaining 11.22 percent to $27.73 after the company rode a tide of strong investor sentiment from its positive phase II data on Thursday. Nimble Storage NMBL was also on the rise, gaining 10.58 percent to $29.17, possibly related to the IBM decision to no longer sell NetApp products. Equities Trading DOWN
RetailMeNot SALE fell once again Friday, dropping 6.28 percent to $23.65 following a downgrade from Stifel to a Hold rating. Hibbett Sports HIBB was down as well, falling 7.55 percent to $52.80 after the company matched analyst expectations on the bottom line, but left street expectations towards the top end of its guidance. The company also guided a $0.11 per share cost of adding a new wholesale and logistics facility. Shares of Pharmacyclics PCYC also fell, dropping 6.86 percent to $87.90 on seemingly little news. Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 0.64 percent to $104.40, while gold traded down 0.15 percent to $1,293.70. Silver traded down 0.50 percent Friday to $19.41, while copper rose 0.75 percent to $3.17. Euro zone
Europe's markets were mostly lower Friday; the UK's FTSE lost 0.25 percent, the STOXX 600 was down 0.11 percent and both the German DAX and the Spanish IBEX lost 0.01 percent. However, France's CAC 40 rose 0.03 percent and Italy's MIB gained 0.34 percent. Economics
In economic news Friday, new home sales came in at 433K, beating estimates of 425K, and showing significant growth over the revised prior figure of 407k. The month over month growth in new home sales came in at 6.4 percent, missing consensus estimates of 10.7 percent, but crushing the revised prior figure of a loss of 6.9 percent.