Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Up 1.75%; Splunk Shares Jump After Strong Q2 Earnings

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.64 percent to 25,820.34 while the NASDAQ climbed 0.83 percent to 7,943.50. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.64 percent to 2,875.32.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Friday afternoon, the materials shares rose 1.34 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Hecla Mining Company HL up 9 percent, and M Pretium Resources Inc PVG up 9 percent.

In trading on Friday, consumer staples shares fell 0.02 percent.

Top Headline

Foot Locker, Inc. FL reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter.

Foot Locker posted quarterly earnings of $0.75 per share on revenue of $1.782 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.70 per share on revenue of $1.76 billion. Its same-store sales rose 0.5 percent.

Equities Trading UP

Alliance MMA, Inc. AMMA shares shot up 180 percent to $0.56 after the company announced early this morning it has entered into agreement to acquire big data SaaS company SCWorx Corp.

Shares of China Commercial Credit, Inc. GLG got a boost, shooting up 25 percent to $0.79 after the company reported it had regained compliance with Nasdaq listing rules.

Splunk Inc. SPLK shares were also up, gaining 16 percent to $125.18 following strong Q2 earnings. The company also issued strong Q3 guidance and raised 2018 sales guidance.

Equities Trading DOWN

Hibbett Sports, Inc. HIBB shares dropped 29 percent to $20.90 after the company reported downbeat results for its second quarter and lowered its FY19 forecast.

Shares of Grupo Supervielle S.A. SUPV were down 21 percent to $7.19 after reporting Q2 results.

China Biologic Products Holdings, Inc. CBPO was down, falling around 14 percent to $87.00 after the company announced sale of 5.85 million new shares, totalling 14.9% of outstanding shares. China Biologic Products disclosed that it has received a letter from CITIC Capital withdrawing its preliminary non-binding offer.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.75 percent to $69.02 while gold traded up 1.62 percent to $1,213.40.

Silver traded up 1.86 percent Friday to $14.915, while copper rose 1.82 to $2.7265.

Eurozone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.05 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.23 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index surged 0.65 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 0.23 percent, and the French CAC 40 climbed 0.24 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.19 percent.

Economics

U.S. durable goods orders fell 1.7 percent for July, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.5 percent drop.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs slipped by 9 to 860 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.