Mid-Afternoon Market Update: FedEx Falls On Earnings Miss; Neoleukin Therapeutics Shares Climb

Toward the end of trading Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.08% to 28288.93 while the NASDAQ rose 0.21% to 8,842.22. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.10% to 3,195.70.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Real estate shares climbed 1.3% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Uniti Group Inc UNIT, up 12%, and Clipper Realty Inc. CLPR, up 5%.

In trading on Wednesday, materials shares fell 0.5%.

Top Headline

General Mills, Inc. GIS reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter.

General Mills reported second-quarterly earnings of 95 cents per share on Wednesday, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of 88 cents. The company reported quarterly sales of $4.42 billion, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $4.43 billion.

General Mills reaffirmed its full-year fiscal 2020 targets for sales, profit, and EPS, and raised its target for free cash flow conversion.

Equities Trading UP

Neoleukin Therapeutics, Inc. NLTX shares shot up 19% to $10.96. Neoleukin Therapeutics priced its 8.925 million share public offering at $8.40 per share.

Shares of Steelcase Inc. SCS got a boost, shooting up 19% to $22.70 after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 EPS and sales results.

CorMedix, Inc. CRMD shares were also up, gaining 20% to $7.85. B. Riley FBR initiated coverage on Cormedix with a Buy rating.

Equities Trading DOWN

FedEx Corporation FDX shares tumbled 10% to $146.61 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q2 results and issued soft FY20 guidance.

Shares of Akorn, Inc. AKRX were down 31% to $2.10 following a bearish SeekingAlpha article that warns of possible bankruptcy.

Solid Biosciences Inc. SLDB was down, falling 15% to $4.085 following on an update on its clinical development program for its SGT-001, its gene transfer investigational candidate for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, or DMD.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 0.4% to $61.16, while gold traded down 0.1% to $1,478.70.

Silver traded down 0.2% Wednesday to $17.045, while copper fell 0.1% to $2.811.

Euro zone


European shares closed mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 0.13%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.06%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index slipped 0.01%. Meanwhile, the German DAX dropped 0.49%, and the French CAC 40 fell 0.15% while UK shares rose 0.21%.

Economics

U.S. crude supplies dropped 1.1 million barrels for the week ended December 13, the Energy Information Administration reported. However, analysts expected a decline of 2.5 million barrels. Gasoline supplies rose 2.5 million barrels, while distillate supplies gained 1.5 million barrels for the week.