Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Rises Over 200 Points; Barnes & Noble Education Shares Slide

Toward the end of trading Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.76% to 27713.10 while the NASDAQ rose 0.70% to 8,580.68. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.81% to 3,118.21.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed 1.6% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Vista Oil & Gas, S.A.B. de C.V. VIST, up 19%, and Pacific Drilling S.A. PACD, up 16%.

In trading on Wednesday, consumer staples shares rose by just 0.4%.

Top Headline

G-III Apparel Group GIII reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter, while sales missed estimates.

G-III Apparel posted quarterly earnings of $1.99 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $1.94 ps. Its sales came in at $1.13 billion, missing estimates of $1.17 billion.

G-III Apparel said it expects FY20 adjusted EPS of $3.06-$3.16 on sales of $3.20 billion. Analysts expect earnings of $3.16 per share on sales of $3.28 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc. PTGX shares shot up 82% to $8.55. On Tuesday, Protagonist Therapeutics announced results from mid-stage study of PTG-300 in transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia.

Shares of Relmada Therapeutics, Inc. RLMD got a boost, shooting up 36% to $46.94. Relmada Therapeutics priced its common-stock offering of 3.33 million shares at $30 per share. The company expects to raise gross proceeds of $100 million from the offering, which is expected to close Dec. 6.

iBio, Inc. IBIO shares were also up, gaining 54% to $0.29 on continued momentum after the company joined the manufacturing USA's tissue Biofabrication initiative.

Equities Trading DOWN

Barnes & Noble Education, Inc. BNED shares tumbled 20% to $3.8550 after the company reported downbeat Q2 results.

Shares of Revance Therapeutics, Inc. RVNC were down 18% to $16.58 after the company priced its 6.5 million share common stock offering at $17 per share.

Immunomedics, Inc. IMMU was down, falling 9% to $17.37 after the company announced a proposed offering of $250 million of common stock.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 4.2% to $58.46, while gold traded down 0.4% to $1,479.10.

Silver traded down 2% Wednesday to $16.90, while copper rose 1.3% to $2.6575.

Euro zone


European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 1.18%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.48%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 1.31%. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 1.16%, and the French CAC 40 rose 1.27% while UK shares rose 0.42%.

Economics

U.S. private sector added 67,000 jobs in November, according to the ADP national employment report. However, economists were expecting a gain of 140,000 jobs last month.

The IHS Markit services PMI came in at 51.6 in November, versus 50.6 in the prior month. The IHS Markit composite PMI rose to 52.0 in November, compared to 50.9 in October.

The ISM non-manufacturing PMI dropped to 53.9 in November, versus a reading of 54.7 in the prior month.

U.S. crude supplies dropped 4.9 million barrels for the week ended November 29, the Energy Information Administration reported. However, analysts expected a decline of 700,000 barrels. Gasoline supplies rose 3.4 million barrels, while distillate supplies gained 3.1 million barrels last week.