Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.18 percent to 23,968.67 while the NASDAQ declined 0.02 percent to
7,098.84. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.02 percent to 2,635.10.
Leading and Lagging Sectors
Thursday afternoon, the materials shares rose 0.49 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Ryerson Holding
Corporation (NYSE: RYI), up 11 percent, and Synalloy
Corporation (NASDAQ: SYNL) up 10 percent.
In trading on Thursday, financial shares tumbled 0.84 percent.
Top Headline
Kellogg Company (NYSE: K) reported better-than-expected
earnings for its first quarter.
Kellogg posted Q1 earnings of $1.19 per share on sales of $3.401 billion. Analysts expected earnings of $1.08 per share on sales
of $3.29 billion.
Equities Trading UP
STAAR Surgical Company (NASDAQ: STAA) shares shot
up 26 percent to $21.03 after reporting upbeat Q1 results.
Shares of Integrated Media Technology Limited (NASDAQ: IMTE) got a boost, shooting up 56 percent to $34.2425. The nano-cap low-float stock
skyrocketed over 1,300 percent on Wednesday on no company specific news which would support the surge. The move higher is
consistent with what was seen in other low-float stocks over the past few months.
Xspand Products Lab Inc (NASDAQ: XSPL) shares were
also up, gaining 27 percent to $6.37. Xspand Products priced its IPO at $5 per share.
Equities Trading DOWN
Heat Biologics, Inc. (NASDAQ: HTBX) shares dropped
49 percent to $1.26 after the company priced its $18,000,000 public offering.
Shares of Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc. (NYSE: HOS) were down 23 percent to $2.82 following wider-than-expected Q1 loss.
Anika Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: ANIK) was down,
falling around 28 percent to $33.40 after the company posted downbeat quarterly results.
Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 0.63 percent to $68.36 while gold traded up 0.56 percent to $1,312.90.
Silver traded up 0.58 percent Thursday to $16.47, while copper rose 0.46 percent to $3.0825.
Eurozone
European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 0.73 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.50 percent,
while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.83 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX fell 0.88 percent, and the French CAC 40 slipped 0.50
percent while U.K. shares fell 0.54 percent.
Economics
Initial jobless claims increased 2,000 to 211,000 in the latest week. Economists projected claims to reach 225,000 last
week.
The trade deficit fell 15 percent to $49 billion in March versus $57.7 billion in February.
U.S. nonfarm productivity gained 0.7 percent for the first quarter.
The Markit services PMI rose to 54.6 in April from 54 in March.
U.S. factory orders rose 1.6 percent for March.
The ISM non-manufacturing index declined to 56.8 in April, versus 58.8 in March.
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