Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Down 4%; Imperva Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded down 0.56 percent to 18,288.88 while the NASDAQ declined 0.50 percent to 5,312.90. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.46 percent to 2,167.22.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Friday afternoon, non-cyclical consumer goods & services shares slipped by just 0.02 percent.

In trading on Friday, energy shares tumbled by 1.5 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Tidewater Inc. TDW, down 8 percent, and Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc. HOS, down 8 percent.

Top Headline

Finish Line Inc FINL reported in-line earnings for its second quarter, while sales exceeded expectations. The company also reiterated its full year EPS outlook that is in line with predictions.

The company reported net income of $22.075 million, or $0.53 a share, down from $25.86 million, or $0.57 a share, in the year-ago quarter. Street expected $0.57 a share.

Finnish Line delivered 5.4 percent growth in revenue from $483.15 million to $509.4 million and topped analysts' predictions of $495.04 million. The company's comparable store sales witnessed 5.1 percent uptick.

Equities Trading UP

AC Immune Ltd ACIU shares shot up 46 percent to $16.01. AC IMMUNE priced its IPO at $11 per share.

Shares of Imperva Inc IMPV got a boost, shooting up 21 percent to $52.67 helped by rumors about International Business Machines Corp. IBM and Cisco Systems, Inc. CSCO might be interested in acquiring the company.

Twitter Inc TWTR shares were also up, gaining 20 percent to $22.38 following a CNBC report the company is in discussions to sell itself to salesforce.com, inc. CRM, Alphabet Inc GOOG, among other unnamed technology companies.

Equities Trading DOWN

Enphase Energy Inc ENPH shares dropped 28 percent to $1.20 after disclosing restructuring and cost reduction initiatives, which are expected to result in annualized savings of approximately $20 million. The plan includes an 11 percent reduction of the company’s global workforce and the elimination of some non-core projects, at a cost of $3 million. Management said it has plans for a public offering of common stock, although the size is yet to be publicized.

Shares of Rave Restaurant Group Inc RAVE were down 18 percent to $3.16. RAVE Restaurant reported a Q4 loss of $2.3 million on revenue of $15.7 million.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co HMHC was down, falling around 12 percent to $13.15 as the company reported the resignation of its CEO Linda Zecher. The board named L. Gordon Crovitz as interim CEO.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 4 percent to $44.48 while gold traded down 0.28 percent to $1,340.90.

Silver traded down 1.86 percent Friday to $19.73, while copper rose 0.32 percent to $2.20.

Eurozone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 0.72 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.25 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index tumbled 1.11 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX declined 0.4 percent, and the French CAC 40 declined 0.47 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.03 percent.

Economics

The preliminary reading of the Markit manufacturing PMI declined to 51.40 in September, versus a prior reading of 52.00. Economists were expecting a reading of 51.90.