Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Higher; Twitter Beats Revenue Estimates

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.14% to 29332.00 while the NASDAQ rose 0.39% to 9,545.86. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.27% to 3,343.84.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Communication services shares climbed 0.9% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included QuinStreet Inc QNST, up 20%, and Twitter Inc TWTR, up 15%.

In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell 0.6%.

Top Headline

Twitter Inc TWTR reported weaker-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter, while sales exceeded estimates.

Twitter reported quarterly earnings of $0.25 per share, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $0.29 per share. The company reported quarterly sales of $1.01 billion, which exceeded the analyst consensus estimate of $996.74 million.

Twitter reported advertising revenue totaled $885 million, an increase of 12% year-over-year. The company also reported fourth-quarter average monetizable daily active users were 152 million, compared to 126 million in the same period of the previous year and compared to 145 million in the previous quarter. Twitter sees first-quarter operating income at $0-$30 million and sales $825 million-$885 million.

Equities Trading UP

JanOne Inc. JAN shares shot up 51% to $4.70 after the company announced manufacturing agreement for TV1001SR in peripheral artery disease.

Shares of Unisys Corporation UIS got a boost, shooting 49% to $16.49 after the company announced it will sell its US Federal Business to SAIC for $1.2 billion.

CURO Group Holdings Corp. CURO shares were also up, gaining 21% to $12.52 following better-than-expected Q4 earnings.

Equities Trading DOWN

GasLog Partners LP GLOP shares tumbled 40% to $6.11 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 EPS and sales results.

Shares of Funko, Inc. FNKO were down 35% to $10.13 after the company reported preliminary Q4 EPS results below analyst estimates. Various analysts also downgraded the stock.

Matrix Service Company MTRX was down, falling 30% to $13.87 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q2 EPS and sales results. The company also issued FY20 EPS and sales guidance below analyst estimates. Sidoti & Co. downgraded Matrix Service from Buy to Neutral and lowered the price target from $28 to $20.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 1.1% to $51.33, while gold traded up 0.3% to $1,567.90.

Silver traded up 0.8% Thursday to $17.745, while copper rose 0.6% to $2.5905.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.4%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.7%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.8% Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 0.7%, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.6% while UK shares rose 0.3%.

Economics

U.S. initial jobless claims dropped 15,000 to 202,000 in the week ending February 1. However, economists were expecting a 215,000 reading.

U.S. nonfarm productivity increased an annualized 1.4% in the fourth quarter, versus a 0.2% drop in the prior three-month period. Unit labor costs increased an annualized 1.4% in the quarter.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is scheduled for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 8-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

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

Federal Reserve Governor Randal Quarles will speak at 7:15 p.m. ET.