Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Higher; Twitter Reports Upbeat Sales

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded up 0.08% to 27163.13 while the NASDAQ rose 0.9% to 8,312.90. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.5% to 3,018.79.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Communication services shares climbed 2.7% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Alphabet Inc. GOOG, up 10%, and LiveXLive Media, Inc. LIVX, up 11%.

In trading on Friday, energy shares fell 0.4%.

Top Headline

Twitter, Inc. TWTR reported upbeat sales for its second quarter on Friday.

Twitter reported second-quarter earnings of 5 cents per share, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of 19 cents. When adjusted to account for tax assets from intra-entity transfers of intangible assets, Twitter's EPS comes out at 20 cents. The company reported quarterly sales of $841.381 million, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $829.29 million.

Twitter sees third quarter sales of $815 million-$875 million versus as $869.3 million estimate. In the second quarter, Twitter said "average monetized daily active users" stood at 139 million versus a 136.3 million estimate and 122 million in the same quarter last year.
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Equities Trading UP

Smith Micro Software, Inc. SMSI shares shot up 30% to $4.47 after the company reported better-than-expected Q2 EPS and sales results.

Shares of GlobalSCAPE, Inc. GSB got a boost, shooting up 26% to $13.04 after the company reported Q2 EPS higher from last year.

Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc. TYPE shares were also up, gaining 23% to $19.94 after the company reported it will be purchased by HGGC for $19.85 per share in cash.

Equities Trading DOWN

Neuralstem, Inc. CUR shares tumbled 36% to $2.37 after the company priced its underwritten public offering of 2.77 million shares at $2.70 per share.

Shares of Merit Medical Systems, Inc. MMSI were down 27% to $40.03 after the company reported Q2 EPS and sales results.

Carbonite, Inc. CARB was down, falling 26% to $17.70 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q2 sales results. The company also issued Q3 sales guidance below analyst estimates and cut its FY19 EPS guidance below analyst estimates.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.1% to $56.10, while gold traded up 0.6% to $1,422.80.

Silver traded up 0.5% Friday to $16.495, while copper fell 0.3% to $2.6955.

Euro zone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.32%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.62%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dipped 0.4%. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 0.4%, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.57% while UK shares rose 0.55%.

Economics

Despite concerns over a slowing global economy and negative impacts of the ongoing trade war with China, the U.S. grew its gross domestic product by 2.1% in the second quarter of 2019, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The U.S. economy overcame falling economic growth forecasts around the world an ongoing trade war with China and more dovish commentary from the Federal Reserve and beat consensus forecasts of just 1.8% growth.

The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week is schedule for release at 1:00 p.m. ET.