Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dycom Industries Rises On Upbeat Q1 Results; BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Shares Plummet

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.66 percent to 25,848.55 while the NASDAQ rose 1.13 percent to 7,789.56. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.87 percent to 2,865.01.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Materials shares rose by 1.5 percent on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector includedLithium Americas Corp LAC 13.56%, up 11 percent, and Gold Standard Ventures Corp GSV 8.81%, up 8 percent.

In trading on Tuesday, consumer staples shares fell by 0.2 percent.

Top Headline

TJX Companies Inc TJX 0.51% reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter

TJX reported quarterly earnings of 57 cents per share, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of 55 cents. The company reported quarterly sales of $9.278 billion, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $9.21 billion.

For the second quarter, TJX expects Q2 earnings of $0.61 to $0.62 per share and same-store sales growth of 2 percent to 3 percent. For the year, the company now projects earnings of $2.56 to $2.61 per share.

Equities Trading UP

CIRCOR International, Inc. CIR 39.68% shares shot up 40 percent to $42.96 after Crane Co. CR 1.58% reported a $45 per share cash bid for CIRCOR.

Shares of JMU Ltd- ADR JMU 43.8% got a boost, shooting up 39 percent to $1.6824 after the company acquired Unicorn Investment Limited.

Dycom Industries, Inc. DY 19.38% shares were also up, gaining 21 percent to $55.08 after reporting better-than-expected Q1 results.

Equities Trading DOWN

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. BCRX 53.79% shares tumbled 53 percent to 3.51 despite a seemingly positive clinical trial readout. BioCryst announced Tuesday that a Phase 3 study dubbed APeX-2, which is evaluating once-daily, oral BCX7353 —a selective inhibitor of plasma kallikrein — in preventing hereditary angioedema, or HAE, attacks, met the primary endpoint for both the 110mg and 150mg dose levels. The primary efficacy endpoint is the rate of investigator-confirmed angioedema attacks over 24 weeks of study drug administration. The 110mg dose of BCX7353 reduced the HAE attack rate by 30 percent compared to placebo and the 150mg dose reduced the attack rate by 44 percent. The company noted that 50 percent of patients receiving the higher dosage sawa more than 70-percent reduction in their HAE attack rate.

Shares of Superconductor Technologies, Inc. SCON 23.36% were down 22 percent to $0.9563 after the company had a public offering of 1.7 million shares priced at $1.00 per share.

Ocular Therapeutix, Inc. OCUL 25.5% was down, falling 27 percent to $2.4550 after the company reported its Phase 3 trail of OTX-TP for glaucome treatment did not meet its primary endpoint. Cowen and Raymond James downgraded the stock.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.1 percent to $63.01, while gold traded down 0.4 percent to $1,272.40.

Silver traded down 0.3 percent Tuesday to $14.40, while copper fell 0.5 percent to $2.713.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.54 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index gained 0.43 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.77 percent. Meanwhile, the German DAX climbed 0.85 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.5 percent while UK shares gained 0.25 percent.

Economics

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index rose 1.2 percent during the first two weeks of May versus April.

U.S. existing home sales fell 0.4 percent at an annual rate of 5.19 million for April. However, economists were expecting a 5.37 million rate.