Mid-Day Market Update: Dow Down Over 300 Points; Endocyte Shares Spike Higher

Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 1.29 percent to 25,375.15 while the NASDAQ declined 1.87 percent to 7,499.79. The S&P also fell, dropping 1.34 percent to 2,771.60.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

On Thursday, the real estate shares rose by 0.43 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Farmland Partners Inc FPI 3.55% up 4 percent, and InfraREIT Inc HIFR 2.28% up 3 percent.

In trading on Thursday, information technology shares fell 1.68 percent.

Top Headline

Philip Morris International Inc. ABT 2.62% reported upbeat earnings for its third quarter.

Philip Morris posted quarterly earnings of $1.44 per share on revenue of $7.5 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $1.28 per share on sales of $7.17 billion. Philip Morris reaffirmed its FY18 earnings guidance of $4.97 to $5.02 per share.

Equities Trading UP

Endocyte, Inc. ECYT 50.71% shares shot up 50 percent to $23.40 after the company agreed to be acquired by Novartis AG NVS 0.95% for $24 per share.

Shares of Proteostasis Therapeutics, Inc. PTI 307.41% got a boost, shooting up 282 percent to $7.2253 on the announcement of positive preliminary results from three doublet cohorts of Phase 1 placebo-controlled studies in subjects with cystic fibrosi. PTI-801 and PTI-808 achieved statistical significance on all endpoints.

Dunxin Financial Holdings Limited DXF shares were also up, gaining 28 percent to $3.9199.

Equities Trading DOWN

Insteel Industries, Inc. IIIN 13.75% shares dropped 13 percent to $29.45 after the company reported downbeat Q4 results.

Shares of Texas Capital Bancshares, Inc. TCBI 10.2% were down 10 percent to $69.32 after reporting a third-quarter earnings miss.

Textron Inc. TXT 9.45% was down, falling around 8 percent to $59.36 after the company reported downbeat earnings for its third quarter and narrowed its FY18 adjusted earnings guidance.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.27 percent to $69.56 while gold traded up 0.29 percent to $1,231.00.

Silver traded down 0.23 percent Thursday to $14.63, while copper fell 1.04 to $2.749.

Eurozone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 slipped 0.45 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.14 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index slipped 1.6 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX dropped 0.94 percent, and the French CAC 40 declined 0.44 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.39 percent.

Economics

Initial jobless claims slipped 5,000 to 210,000 in the latest week. However, economists were expecting a reading of 214,000.

The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index dropped to 22.2 for October, versus a reading of 22.9 in September. Economists projected a reading of 19.7.

The index of leading economic indicators rose 0.5 percent for September.

Domestic supplies of natural gas climbed 81 billion cubic feet for the week ended October 12, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts expected a gain of 82 billion cubic feet.

Data on money supply for the recent week will be released at 4:30 p.m. ET.