Mid-Day Market Update: Markets Down; Procter & Gamble Reports Mixed Q2 Results

Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.56% to 29,023.07 while the NASDAQ fell 0.14% to 9,370.32. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.38% to 3,309.20.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Real estate shares climbed 0.6% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Rafael Holdings, Inc. RFL, up 9%, and Innovative Industrial Properties, Inc. IIPR, up 3%.

In trading on Thursday, health care shares fell 1.2%.

Top Headline

Procter & Gamble PG reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter, while sales missed estimates.

Procter & Gamble reported second-quarter earnings of $1.42 per share on Thursday, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $1.37. The company reported quarterly sales of $18.24 billion, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $18.35 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Trans World Entertainment Corporation TWMC shares shot up 222% to $7.35 after the company reported a deal to sell FYE Segment for $10 million in cash.

Shares of NanoViricides, Inc. NNVC got a boost, shooting up 35% to $5.14 following an outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus in China, which has now reportedly spread to the US. The company operates in the viral diseases space.

Kaleido BioSciences, Inc. KLDO shares were also up, gaining 28% to $7.34.

Equities Trading DOWN

Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, Inc. TTPH shares tumbled 32% to $2.62 after the company reported $17.5 million of financings priced at-the-market.

Shares of Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation AGTC were down 26% to $7.33 despite the company reporting encouraging results from an Phase 1/2 study. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company released interim results from the dose-escalation cohorts of its ongoing Phase 1/2 clinical studies that evaluated its AAV-based gene therapy in patients with achromatopsia resulting from mutations in the ACHM CNGB3 or ACHM CNGA3 genes, which showed encouraging signs of biologic activity and a favorable safety profile, with no dose-limiting inflammatory responses observed.

FuelCell Energy, Inc. FCEL was down, falling 21% to $1.75 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 earnings results on Wednesday. Craig-Hallum also downgraded the stock from Hold to Sell and announced a price target of $1.5 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 2.5% to $55.31, while gold traded up 0.4% to $1,562.90.

Silver traded down 0.2% Thursday to $17.785, while copper fell 1.8% to $2.716.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.7%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.5%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.1%. Meanwhile, the German DAX dropped 0.8%, and the French CAC 40 fell 0.6% while UK shares fell 0.9%.

Economics

Initial jobless claims rose 6,000 to 211,000 in the latest week.

U.S. leading economic indicators fell 0.3% in December.

U.S. crude supplies dropped 400,000 barrels for the week ended January 17, the Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts projected a gain of 500,000 barrels.

Domestic supplies of natural gas declined 92 billion cubic feet for the week ended January 17, the Energy Information Administration reported.