Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Mixed; Morgan Stanley Beats Q2 Estimates

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.12 percent to 25,150.29 while the NASDAQ declined 0.20 percent to 7,839.23. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.05 percent to 2,808.29.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Wednesday morning, the industrial shares climbed 0.89 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included W.W. Grainger, Inc. GWW up 8 percent, and United Continental Holdings, Inc. UAL up 7 percent.

In trading on Wednesday, energy shares fell 1.29 percent.

Top Headline

Morgan Stanley MS reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter.

The bank posted quarterly profit of $1.30 per share, on revenue of $10.61 billion. Analysts projected earnings of $1.11 per share on revenue of $10.10 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Precipio, Inc. PRPO shares shot up 68 percent to $0.6137 after announcing preliminary second-quarter results. The specialty cancer diagnostics company said on a preliminary basis second quarter revenue rose 213 percent from $260,000 a year ago to $815,000.

Shares of CounterPath Corporation CPAH got a boost, shooting up 52 percent to $4.187 after the company reported signing of deal with a leading contract center solution provider to deploy the company’s Hosted Stretto Platform.

MER Telemanagement Solutions Ltd. MTSL shares were also up, gaining 59 percent to $3.28 after falling 27.46 percent on Tuesday.

Equities Trading DOWN

CTI BioPharma Corp. CTIC shares dropped 27 percent to $2.9250 after the company issued pacritinib program update following Type B meeting with the U.S. FDA.

Shares of Windstream Holdings, Inc. WIN were down 10 percent to $3.79. Citigroup downgraded Windstream from Neutral to Sell.

Healthcare Services Group, Inc. HCSG was down, falling around 10 percent to $38.0401 after the company reported downbeat Q2 results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.75 percent to $67.57 while gold traded down 0.40 percent to $1,222.40.

Silver traded down 1.13 percent Wednesday to $15.44, while copper fell 0.86 to $2.7235.

Eurozone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.52 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.03 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.12 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 0.75 percent, and the French CAC 40 gained 0.51 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.63 percent.

Economics

U.S. housing starts declined 12.3 percent to an annual rate of 1.173 million for June.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on petroleum inventories in the U.S. is schedule for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Federal Reserve will release its latest Beige Book report at 2:00 p.m. ET.