Mid-Afternon Market Update: L Brands Rises After Q1 Results; Bluegreen Vacations Shares Plummet

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 1.58 percent to 25,369 while the NASDAQ fell 1.95 percent to 7,599.91. The S&P also fell, dropping 1.59 percent to 2,810.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Utilities shares rose by 0.3 percent on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Centrais Elétricas Brasileiras S.A. - Eletrobras EBR, up 2 percent, and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. BIP, up 1.5 percent.

In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell by 3.7 percent.

Top Headline

Best Buy Co Inc BBY reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter.

Best Buy reported first quarterly earnings of $1.02 per share, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of 86 cents by 18.6 percent. The company reported sales of $9.142 billion, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $9.13 billion by 0.13 percent.

Equities Trading UP

L Brands Inc LB shares shot up 13 percent to $24.32 after the company reported better-than-expected Q1 results. The company also raised the low end of FY19 EPS guidance.

Shares of Netshoes (CAYMAN) Ltd NETS got a boost, shooting up 40 percent to $2.75 following a Reuters report that the owner of Group SBF presented a competing bid for the company.

Neovasc Inc NVCN shares were also up, gaining 44 percent to $0.68 following news 2-year follow-up safety and efficacy data for its Neovasc Reducer was published in the International Journal of Cardiology.

Equities Trading DOWN

Organovo Holdings Inc ONVO shares tumbled 38 percent to $0.56 after the company reported it sees its preliminary Q4 net loss to be $7 million.

Shares of Bluegreen Vacations Corp BXG were down 33 percent to $9.98 after BBX Capital announced it will not proceed with the merger with Bluegreen Vacations.

Obalon Therapeutics Inc OBLN was down, falling 47 percent to $0.70 after the company priced its direct offering of 5 million shares at $0.6 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 6 percent to $57.71, while gold traded up 0.9 percent to $1,285.30.

Silver traded up 1.1 percent Thursday to $ 14.61, while copper rose 0.3 percent to $2.687.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.42 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index declined 1.28 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 2.12 percent. Meanwhile, the German DAX declined 1.78 percent, and the French CAC 40 fell 1.81 percent while UK shares dropped 1.41 percent.

Economics

Initial jobless claims fell 1,000 to 211,000 last week. However, economists projected a reading of 217,000.

The flash manufacturing PMI fell to 50.6 in May, versus a reading of 52.6 in April, while services PMI slipped to 50.9 in May from 53.

New-home sales fell 6.9 percent at an annual rate of 673,000 in April.

Domestic supplies of natural gas climbed 100 billion cubic feet for the week ended May 17, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. However, analysts were expecting a gain of 103 billion cubic feet.

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