Mid-Day Market Update: GameStop Falls Following Soft 2019 Holiday Sales; RTI Surgical Shares Climb

Midway through trading Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.38% to 29,018.33 while the NASDAQ rose 0.01% to 9,274.37. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.01% to 3,288.18.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Financial shares climbed 0.4% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Jianpu Technology Inc - ADR JT, up 9%, and Colony Bankcorp, Inc. CBAN, up 5%.

In trading on Tuesday, real estate shares fell 0.8%.

Top Headline

JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM reported better-than-expected results for its fourth quarter on Tuesday.

JPMorgan reported earnings of $2.57 per share, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $2.35. The company reported fourth-quarterly sales of $28.3 billion, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $27.96 billion

Equities Trading UP

RTI Surgical Holdings, Inc. RTIX shares shot up 70% to $4.70 after the company announced it will sell its OEM Business for $490 million. The company also issued preliminary Q4 and FY19 sales guidance above analyst estimates.

Shares of XBiotech Inc. XBIT got a boost, shooting up 37% to $25.42 after the company announced it has commenced a tender offer to purchase up to $420 million of its common shares.

IRIDEX Corporation IRIX shares were also up, gaining 50% to $3.53 after the company reported strong preliminary sales for the fourth quarter and full year 2019.

Equities Trading DOWN

Stemline Therapeutics, Inc. STML shares tumbled 33% to $6.34. Stemline Therapeutics announced preliminary results for 2019 and said it expects Elzonris net revenue of $43.2 million for the full year and $11.8 million for the fourth quarter. Analysts, on average, are forecasting revenue of $15.06 million for the fourth quarter and $46.44 million for the full year..

Shares of NantKwest, Inc. NK were down 19% to $5.51. NantKwest and ImmunityBio announced complete response in metastatic pancreatic cancer in first patient to receive PD-L1 tumor-targeted natural killer cells (PD-L1.t-haNK) combined with N-803 IL-15 fusion protein.

GameStop Corp. GME was down, falling 14% to $4.655 after the company reported holiday sales were down 27.5% year-over-year and comparable sales were down 24.7% year-over-year.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 0.8% to $58.55, while gold traded down 0.5% to $1,543.10.

Silver traded down 1.4% Tuesday to $17.745, while copper rose 0.1% to $2.864.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.29%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.16%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.13% Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 0.04%, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.08% while UK shares rose 0.06%.

Economics

The NFIB small business optimism index dropped to 102.7 in December, versus a reading of 104.7 in November.

The Consumer Price Index rose 0.2% for December, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.2% increase.

Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George will speak at 1:00 p.m. ET.