Markets Mostly Lower; Wells Fargo Posts In-Line Profit

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded down 0.24 percent to 16,875.15 while the NASDAQ gained 0.07 percent to 4,399.32. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.18 percent to 1,961.25.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Telecommunications services shares gained around 0.25 percent in today’s trading. Top gainers in the sector included NQ Mobile NQ, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone NTT, and SK Telecom Co SKM.

In trading on Friday, financial shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 0.40 percent. Top losers in the sector included MGIC Investment MTG, down 11.9 percent, and Radian Group RDN, off 5.2 percent.

Top Headline

Wells Fargo & Co WFC reported a gain in its click here second-quarter profit.

Wells Fargo’s quarterly profit surged to $5.7 billion, or $1.01 per share, from a year-ago profit of $5.5 billion, or $0.98 per share.

Its revenue declined 3.4% to $21.1 billion from $21.4 billion. However, analysts were expecting a profit of $1.01 per share on revenue of $20.84 billion.

Equities Trading UP

ChannelAdvisor ECOM shares shot up 5.09 percent to $24.34. Deutsche Bank upgraded Channel Advisor from Hold to Buy. ChannelAdvisor is expected to release its Q2 financial results on August 4, 2014.

Shares of Lorillard LO got a boost, shooting up 4.42 percent to $65.88. Lorillard confirmed that Lorillard and Reynolds American RAI are engaged in discussions regarding RAI's potential acquisition of Lorillard. Cowen & Company initiated coverage on Lorillard with a Underperform rating.

Amazon.com AMZN shares were also up, gaining 3.58 percent to $339.65. Amazon.com’s June same-store sales grew 34 percent, according to the e-commerce market research shop ChannelAdvisor.

Equities Trading DOWN

Shares of Kofax KFX were down 9.53 percent to $7.31 after the company reported selected preliminary unaudited results for FY14. Kofax expected FY14 sales of $295.0 million to $298.0 million.

Rent-A-Center RCII shares tumbled 12.42 percent to $25.45 after the company issued a downbeat guidance for the second quarter. The company expected adjusted earnings of $0.36 to $0.38 per share on revenue of around $773 million.

MGIC Investment MTG was down, falling 12.28 percent to $8.11 following the FHFA proposal. The company released monthly operating statistics for June.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.63 percent to $102.28, while gold traded down 0.16 percent to $1,337.10.

Silver traded down 0.11 percent Friday to $21.49, while copper fell 0.35 percent to $3.26.

Eurozone

European shares were mostly higher today.

The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.19 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index surged 0.65 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 1.06 percent.

Meanwhile, the German DAX slipped 0.02 percent and the French CAC 40 climbed 0.27 percent while UK shares gained 0.09 percent.

Economics

The US Treasury monthly budget report for June will be released at 2:00 p.m. ET.