Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Up 1.5%; Sinclair Broadcast Group Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Monday, the Dow traded down 0.25 percent to 26,439.65 while the NASDAQ declined 0.49 percent to 8,123.98. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.43 percent to 2,933.00.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Monday afternoon, the health care shares rose by 0.5 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Athenex, Inc. ATNX 27.08% up 28 percent, and ImmunoGen, Inc. IMGN 15.28% up 16 percent.

In trading on Monday, materials shares fell 1.3 percent.

Top Headline

SYSCO Corporation SYY 3.25% reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter, while sales missed views.

Earnings came in at $0.79 per share, beating estimates of $0.70 per share. Sales came in at $14.66 billion, missing estimates of $14.76 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Aquantia Corp. AQ 35.5% shares got a boost, shooting up 35 percent to $12.94 after the company announced it will be acquired by Marvell for $13.25 per share in cash, equaling $450 million total.

Shares of Aemetis, Inc. AMTX 56.55% shot up 57 percent to $1.32 after the company won a $23 million biodiesel supply contract with India state-owned oil companies.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. SBGI 35.93% shares were also up, gaining 36 percent to $61.12 after the company announced it plans to acquire 21 regional sports networks from Walt Disney.

Equities Trading DOWN

Midstates Petroleum Company, Inc. MPO 15.6% shares dropped 16 percent to $ 10.80. Amplify Energy and Midstates Petroleum reported merger-of-equals.

Shares of China Eastern Airlines Corporation Limited CEA 7.71% were down 8 percent to $34.13 following a tweet from President Trump hinting at additional tariffs on China. China has indicated it may back out of negotiations this week.

Affiliated Managers Group, Inc. AMG 11.31% was down, falling around 11 percent to $98.33 after the company announced it would acquire a stake in Garda Capital Partners and announced a new CEO and CFO. Affiliated Managers posted Q1 earnings of $3.26 per share on sales of $612.4 million.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.5 percent to $62.87 while gold traded up 0.1 percent to 1,282.50.

Silver traded down 0.3 percent Monday to $14.935, while copper rose 1 percent to $2.847.

Eurozone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.88 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.84 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dipped 1.63 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX dropped 1.01 percent, and the French CAC 40 declined 1.18 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.4 percent.

Economics

On the economics calendar Monday, there is no important data due out.