Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Drops 250 Points; Biostar Pharmaceuticals Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded down 1.37 percent to 18,077.09 while the NASDAQ declined 1.83 percent to 5,231.08. The S&P also fell, dropping 1.54 percent to 2,130.44.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Tuesday afternoon, non-cyclical consumer goods & services shares slipped by just 0.4 percent.

In trading on Tuesday, healthcare shares fell by 2.6 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Illumina, Inc. ILMN, down 26 percent, and Celldex Therapeutics, Inc. CLDX, down 9 percent.

Top Headline

Alcoa Inc AA reported lower than estimated results for the third quarter and provided a tepid outlook for demand for the remainder period of the year.

The aluminum maker reported net income of $106 million, or net income attributable to Alcoa of $166 million, or $0.33 a share. In comparison, the company earned $44 million, or $0.06 a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted EPS came in at $0.32. Analysts projected earnings of $0.35 per share.

Alcoa's sales fell from $5.57 billion to $5.21 billion thus missing the estimates of $5.33 billion. Sequentially too, sales fell from $5.3 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Biostar Pharmaceuticals Inc BSPM shares shot up 95 percent to $6.69 on PR highlighting new product for rhinitis and sinusitis in China. The company sees sales of $7.5 million over the next two years.

Shares of Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation NYMX got a boost, shooting up 16 percent to $3.79 after the company reported successful new Phase 3 long-term fexapotide repeat injection BPH trial results.

Nova Lifestyle Inc NVFY shares were also up, gaining 21 percent to $4.45 as the company disclosed that it has signed a framework agreement to supply products to a Hong Kong and Malaysian company for $15 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

Rent-A-Center Inc RCII shares dropped 30 percent to $9.08. Rent-A-Center warned that its profit for the third quarter would fall short of expectations. The company expects both GAAP and adjusted EPS between $0.05 and $0.15 for the third quarter. This is significantly lower than the Street estimate of $0.39.

Shares of Illumina, Inc. ILMN were down 26 percent to $137.04 after the company preannounced Q3 revenues short of estimates. The company’s Q4 revenue projection also came in short of estimates.

Luxfer Holdings PLC (ADR) LXFR was down, falling around 14 percent to $9.92 after the company issued a weak earnings forecast for the third quarter.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.30 percent to $50.68 while gold traded down 0.28 percent to $1,256.90.

Silver traded down 0.93 percent Tuesday to $17.50, while copper fell 0.59 percent to $2.18.

Eurozone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 0.53 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.10 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.95 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX declined 0.44 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 0.57 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.38 percent.

Economics

There were no major US economic releases Tuesday.