Mid-Afternoon Market Update: NASDAQ Down 1.7%; World Fuel Services Shares Gain Following Upbeat Q2 Results

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded down 0.55 percent to 25,386.36 while the NASDAQ declined 1.7 percent to 7,716.86. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.79 percent to 2,814.94.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Friday afternoon, the telecommunication services shares climbed 2.3 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Globalstar, Inc. GSAT up 7 percent, and Telecom Italia S.p.A. TI up 6 percent.

In trading on Friday, information technology shares fell 1.03 percent.

Top Headline

Twitter Inc TWTR shares fell around 17 percent in reaction to second-quarter results.

MAUs totaled 335 million, with 267 million accounted for by international customers and 68 million by U.S. customers. The year-over-year increase was 9 million, but the figure was down 1 million from Q1. Average daily active users climbed 11 percent, faster than the 10-percent growth in Q1, extending the streak of double-digit year-over-year growth to seven quarters.

The social networking platform reported non-GAAP earnings per share of 17 cents in Q2 compared to 8 cents per share one year ago. Twitter's quarterly revenue rose 24 percent year-over-year to $711 million. Analysts, on average, estimated EPS of 17 cents per share on revenues of $696.23 million.

Equities Trading UP

World Fuel Services Corporation INT shares shot up 22 percent to $27.25 as the company posted better-than-expected Q2 results.

Shares of Endava Ltd DAVA got a boost, shooting up 23 percent to $24.5625 after pricing its IPO at $20 per share.

Essendant Inc. ESND shares were also up, gaining 18 percent to $15.58 after reporting upbeat Q2 results.

Equities Trading DOWN

Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp. TNXP shares dropped 64 percent to $1.44 in reaction to a disappointing update relating to a clinical trial. The company said it will stop a Phase 3 study of its Tonmya therapy in military-related posttraumatic stress disorder due to inadequate separation from placebo on the primary endpoint at week 12.

Shares of American Midstream Partners, LP AMID were down 42 percent to $6.75 after the company reported a revised capital allocation strategy and distribution cut from $0.4125 per unit to $0.1031 per unit.

Cellectar Biosciences, Inc. CLRB was down, falling around 36 percent to $3.45. Cellectar Biosciences priced its public offering for gross proceeds of $14.4 million.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.39 percent to $69.34 while gold traded up 0.05 percent to $1,235.90.

Silver traded up 0.35 percent Friday to $15.55, while copper rose 0.23 to $2.8245.

Eurozone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 climbed 0.40 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.90 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.42 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX climbed 0.40 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.57 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.50 percent.

Economics

The U.S. economy expanded at an annual rate of 4.1 percent for the second quarter, compared to a revised 2.2 percent rate in the prior quarter.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index rose to 97.90 for July, versus prior reading of 97.10. Economists were expecting a reading of 97.10.