Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Cubic Tumbles Following Q4 Results; Hepion Pharmaceuticals Shares Climb

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.01% to 27,818.51 while the NASDAQ fell 0.07% to 8,520.75. However, the S&P rose 0.01% to 3,108.51.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed 1.4% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included McDermott International, Inc. MDR, up 29%, and Pacific Drilling S.A. PACD, up 10%.

In trading on Thursday, real estate shares fell 1.1%.

Top Headline

Macy's Inc M reported downbeat sales for its third quarter and lowered FY19 guidance.

Macy's reported third-quarter earnings of 7 cents per share on Thursday. This is a 74.07% decrease over earnings of 27 cents per share from the same period last year. The company reported quarterly sales of $5.173 billion, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $5.32 billion.

Macy's cut fiscal year 2019 EPS guidance from $2.85-$3.05 to $2.57-$2.77 versus the $2.79 estimate. The company lowered FY19 same-store sales guidance from flat to up 1% to down 1-1.5%

Equities Trading UP

Hepion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. HEPA shares shot up 43% to $3.45 after the thinly-traded, nano-cap biotech announced results from an animal study of its lead product candidate CRV431. New Jersey-based Hepion said CRV431 prevented the development of liver cirrhosis in a highly aggressive, preclinical model of liver disease.

Shares of Stage Stores, Inc. SSI got a boost, shooting up 43% to $3.1784 after the company reported Q3 results.

TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation AMTD shares were also up, gaining 18% to $49.01. Charles Schwab SCHW is looking to acquire TD Ameritrade for $26 billion, Fox Business first reported. The deal could be announced as soon as today.

Equities Trading DOWN

InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp. NVIV shares tumbled 31% to $0.16. InVivo Therapeutics priced its 7 million share offering at $0.12 per share for gross proceeds $840,000.

Shares of Cubic Corporation CUB were down 19% to $59.59 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 EPS results. The company also issued FY20 EPS guidance below analyst estimates.

Karuna Therapeutics, Inc. KRTX was down, falling 25% to $81.79 after the company reported an offering of 2.6 million shares of its common stock at $96 per share.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 2.7% to $58.52, while gold traded down 0.7% to $1,463.90.

Silver traded down 0.4% Thursday to $17.045, while copper fell 0.9% to $2.6245.

Euro zone


European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.4%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.12%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.31%. Meanwhile, the German DAX fell 0.16%, and the French CAC 40 fell 0.22% while UK shares fell 0.33%.

Economics

U.S. initial jobless claims were unchanged at 227,000 for the latest week. However, analysts were expecting a reading of 220,000.

The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index increased to 10.4 for November, versus a reading of 5.6 in October.

U.S. existing home sales increased 1.9% to an annual rate of 5.46 million units in October, versus analysts’ expectations of 1.4% rise.

U.S. leading economic indicators declined 0.1% for October.

Domestic supplies of natural gas dropped 94 billion cubic feet for the week ended November 8, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. However, analysts projected a decline of 91 billion cubic feet.

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