Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Rise; Coca-Cola Tops Q4 Expectations

Following the market opening Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.06 percent to 16,037.05 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.84 percent to 4,319.91. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.31 percent to 1,859.18. Leading and Lagging Sectors On Tuesday, healthcare shares rose by 0.21 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Cerus Corporation CERS, up 13 percent, and Cambrex Corporation CBM up 10 percent. In trading on Tuesday, Energy shares tumbled by 1.87 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Bristow Group Inc BRS, down 19 percent, and Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. PAA, down 12 percent. Top Headline The Coca-Cola Co KO reported better-than-expected results for its fourth quarter. Coca-Cola said that it earned $0.38 per share in the fourth quarter on revenue of $10.0 billion. Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to earn $0.37 per share on revenue of $9.9 billion. Looking forward to fiscal 2016, Coca-Cola is guiding its full-year currency neutral earnings per share growth to be 4 percent to 6 percent (including the impact of 3 to 4 points of structural headwind) Equities Trading UP Bellerophon Therapeutics Inc BLPH shares shot up 36 percent to $2.65 after the company reported positive data from Phase 2 long-term extension study of INOpulse. Shares of Belden Inc. BDC got a boost, shooting up 12 percent to $41.67 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 earnings. Cambrex Corporation CBM shares were also up, gaining 10 percent to $36.00 after the company posted upbeat Q4 earnings. Equities Trading DOWN Qualys Inc QLYS shares dropped 23 percent to $17.44 after the company issued a weak forecast. Shares of American Science & Engineering, Inc. ASEI were down 26 percent to $25.23 after the company reported downbeat Q3 results. GigOptix Inc GIG was down, falling around 14 percent to $2.60. Gigoptix reported Q4 earnings of $0.05 per share on sales of $11.1 million. Commodities In commodity news, oil traded down 0.44 percent to $29.56, while gold traded down 0.12 percent to $1,196.50. Silver traded down 0.49 percent Tuesday to $15.35, while copper fell 3.30 percent to $2.02. Eurozone European shares were lower today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 fell 1.71 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 2.24 percent, while Italy's FTSE MIB Index declined 2.62 percent. Meanwhile, the German DAX fell 1.32 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 2.02 percent, while U.K. shares fell 1.09 percent. Economics U.S. wholesale inventories declined 0.1 percent in December.