Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Resideo Technologies Drops After Q4 Earnings; Seelos Therapeutics Shares Climb

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.8 percent to 25,468.06 while the NASDAQ declined 1.03 percent to 7,428.38. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.78 percent to 2,749.76.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Thursday afternoon, the real estate shares rose 0.7 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. ASPS up 3 percent, and CBL & Associates Properties, Inc CBL up 3 percent.

In trading on Thursday, financial shares fell 1.1 percent.

Top Headline

Kroger Co KR reported lower-than-expected EPS and sales results for its fourth quarter.

Kroger said it earned $0.48 per share in the fourth quarter on revenue of $28.1 billion versus expectations of $0.51 per share and $28.47 billion. Kroger’s same-store sales, excluding fuel, increased 1.9 percent during the quarter.

Kroger expects FY19 earnings of $2.15 to $2.25 per share, versus analysts’ estimates of v$2.16 per share Estimate.

Equities Trading UP

GTx, Inc. GTXI shares got a boost, shooting up 94 percent to $1.7857 after the company announced a merger with Oncternal Therapeutics in which GTx shareholders will own 75 percent of the combined company.

Shares of Seelos Therapeutics, Inc. SEEL shot up 75 percent to $2.71 after the company acquired an exclusive license to intellectual property pertaining to a Parkinson's therapy, which was created by UCLA researchers.

Bio-Path Holdings, Inc. BPTH shares were also up, gaining 207 percent to $36.86 on continued strength after the company on Wednesday announced BP1001 for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia demonstrated 'meaningful clinical improvement' with an 'excellent' patient safety profile.

Equities Trading DOWN

Bridgepoint Education, Inc. BPI shares dropped 33 percent to $6.33 after the company disclosed that material weaknesses in its internal control process have been identified.

Shares of Resideo Technologies, Inc. REZI were down 27 percent to $18.06 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 EPS.

Aptevo Therapeutics Inc. APVO was down, falling around 42 percent to $0.8601 after reporting a proposed public offering of common stock and warrants.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.7 percent to $56.61 while gold traded down 0.1 percent to $1,286.00.

Silver traded down 0.4 percent Thursday to $15.025, while copper fell 0.4 percent to $2.908.

Eurozone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 slipped 0.43 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.5 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 0.74 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX declined 0.6 percent, and the French CAC 40 fell 0.39 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.53 percent.

Economics

U.S. initial jobless claims dropped 3,000 to 223,000 in the latest week. However, economists were expecting a 225,000 reading.

U.S. productivity increased at an annual rate of 1.9 percent in the fourth quarter, while unit-labor costs rose 2 percent.

Domestic supplies of natural gas declined 149 billion cubic feet for the week ended March 1, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts projected a drop of146 billion cubic foot.

Data on consumer credit for January will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.

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