Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Up Over 3%; Natural Grocers Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded down 0.58% to 26,429.85 while the NASDAQ fell 1.49% to 7,990.23. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.85% to 2,928.49.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Real estate shares climbed 0.8% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc. SHO, up 4%, and Redfin Corporation RDFN, up 10%.

In trading on Friday, information technology shares fell 1.9%.

Top Headline

Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter.

Exxon Mobil reported second-quarter earnings of 73 cents per share, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of 69 cents. Oil-equivalent production was 3.9 million barrels per day, up 7% from the second quarter of 2018.

Equities Trading UP

Aphria Inc. APHA shares shot up 39% to $7.22 after reporting a huge increase in quarterly net revenue. Fourth-quarter net revenue came in at CA$128.6 million. This isup from CA$12.03 million in the same period last year, an increase of 969%.

Shares of Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, Inc. NGVC got a boost, shooting up 28% to $11.79 after the company posted upbeat Q3 earnings.

BlackLine, Inc. BL shares were also up, gaining 29% to $54.97 after reporting upbeat Q2 results.

Equities Trading DOWN

Glu Mobile Inc. GLUU shares tumbled 39% to $4.6150 after the company reported downbeat results for its second quarter and lowered its annual outlook.

Shares of Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. ACOR were down 45% to $3.2950 after the company reported Q2 results.

Fluidigm Corporation FLDM was down, falling 33% to $8.10 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q2 sales results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 3.3% to $55.72, while gold traded up 1.5% to $1,454.40.

Silver traded up 0.4% Friday to $16.24, while copper fell 3.7% to $2.5665.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 2.46%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.56%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dropped 2.41%. Meanwhile, the German DAX dropped 3.11%, and the French CAC 40 fell 3.57% while UK shares fell 2.34%.

Economics

The U.S. economy added 164,000 new jobs in July, while the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.7%. However, economists were expecting a gain of 164,000 jobs.

U.S. trade deficit fell 0.3% to $55.2 billion in June. However, economists were projecting a $54.6 billion deficit. Exports fell 2.1% to $206.3 billion, while imports slipped 1.7% to $261.5 billion in June.

The final reading of University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index rose to 98.4 in July, compared to 98.2 in June. However, economists were expecting a reading of 98.5.

U.S. factory orders increased 0.6% for June.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs slipped by 6 to 770 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.