Mid-Afternoon Market Update: U.S. Stocks Turn Negative; Tailored Brands Shares Slide

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.24 percent to 20,805.10 while the NASDAQ declined 0.32 percent to 5,818.63. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.22 percent to 2,357.69.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Non-cyclical consumer goods & services shares rose 0.58 percent in trading on Thursday.

In trading on Thursday, basic materials shares fell by 1.10 percent. Meanwhile, top losers in the sector included Mechel PAO (ADR) MTL, down 8 percent, and Eagle Materials, Inc. EXP, down 6 percent.

Top Headline

Staples, Inc. SPLS posted weaker-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

Staples reported Q4 adjusted earnings of $0.25 per share on revenue of $4.56 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of $0.26 per share on revenue of $5 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Comtech Telecomm. Corp. CMTL shares shot up 22 percent to $13.60. Comtech reported Q2 adjusted earnings of $0.01 per share on revenue of $139 million.

Shares of Care.com Inc CRCM got a boost, shooting up 16 percent to $11.01 after the company reported upbeat quarterly results.

MaxPoint Interactive Inc MXPT shares were also up, gaining 19 percent to $5.44. MaxPoint Interactive reported Q4 earnings of $0.59 per share on revenue of $46.3 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

Tailored Brands Inc TLRD shares dropped 31 percent to $16.07 after the company reported a wider-than-expected loss for its fourth quarter.

Shares of Turtle Beach Corp HEAR were down around 24 percent to $1.07. Turtle Beach reported Q4 earnings of $0.25 per share on revenue of $82.2 million. The company also issued a weak forecast for the first quarter.

InspireMD Inc NSPR was down, falling around 35 percent to $1.29. InspireMD reported the pricing of public offering of up to $7.5 million.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 3 percent to $48.77 while gold traded down 0.53 percent to $1,203.00.

Silver traded down 1.72 percent Thursday to $17.00, while copper fell 0.85 percent to $2.58.

Eurozone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.08 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.5 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.46 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX rose 0.09 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.42 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.27 percent.

Economics

Initial jobless claims rose 20,000 to 243,000 in the latest week. However, economists were expecting jobless claims to total 235,000 in the week.

The import price index increased 0.2 percent in February, while export prices increased 0.3 percent in the month.

Supplies of natural gas dropped 68 billion cubic feet for the week ended March 3, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts projected inventories to fall by 61 billion cubic feet.

Data on money supply for the recent week will be released at 4:30 p.m. ET.