Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Up 300 Points; Corindus Vascular Robotics Shares Gain Following Acquisition News

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 1.16% to 26,307.59 while the NASDAQ rose 1.92% to 8,013.47. The S&P also rose, gaining 1.59% to 2,929.88.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares climbed 2% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Alpha and Omega Semiconductor Limited AOSL, up 27%, and Luna Innovations Incorporated LUNA, up 20%.

In trading on Thursday, consumer staples shares rose by just 0.8%.

Top Headline

Viacom, Inc. VIA reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings and sales results.

The company reported quarterly earnings of $1.20 per share, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $1.07. Viacom reported quarterly sales of $3.36 billion, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $3.33 billion. Its domestic advertising revenue increased 6% to $976 million.

Equities Trading UP

Corindus Vascular Robotics, Inc. CVRS shares shot up 77% to $4.28 after the company announced it will be acquired by Siemens Healthineers AG for $4.28 per share in cash representing an aggregate purchase price of $1.1 billion.

Shares of Vitamin Shoppe, Inc. VSI got a boost, shooting up 42% to $6.44 after the company announced it will be acquired by Liberty Tax for $6.50 per shares in cash, or $208 million deal.

Avedro, Inc. AVDR shares were also up, gaining 37% to $23.30. Glaukos Corp GKOS announced an agreement to acquire Avedro in an all-stock deal. Avedro also released its second-quarter results, which showed 63% revenue growth.

Equities Trading DOWN

PlayAGS, Inc. AGS shares tumbled 49% to $8.79 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q2 EPS and sales results.

Shares of Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. RYAM were down 43% to $2.86 after the company reported downbeat Q2 results.

GTT Communications, Inc. GTT was down, falling 45% to $6.25 after the company reported weak Q2 results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2.3% to $52.24, while gold traded down 0.1% to $1,518.10.

Silver traded down 0.9% Thursday to $17.045, while copper rose 1% to $2.597.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 1.66%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.41%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 1.47%. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 1.68%, and the French CAC 40 rose 2.31% while UK shares rose 1.21%.

Economics

Initial jobless claims fell 8,000 to 209,000 in the latest week, the government reported. Economists were expecting a reading of 215,000.

U.S. wholesale inventories were unchanged for June.

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