Stocks opened in negative territory, but the averages improved as the morning progressed and are mixed at midday. The early weakness was attributed to Brexit concerns, as the situation remains in flux despite an announcement yesterday from Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May that an exit agreement had been reached. The market moved to its best levels after the European markets closed. Oil prices haved moved higher by about 1% despite the weekly DOE inventory report, which pointed to the biggest increase in supply since February 2016.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., initial jobless claims rose 2,000 in the week ended November 10 to 216,000. The Philly Fed index plunged 9.3 points to 12.9 in November, which was much worse than forecast. The Empire State index rose 2.2 points to 23.3 in November from October's 21.1. Import prices rose 0.5% in October, while export prices grew 0.4%.
COMPANY NEWS: Shares of Walmart (WMT) are down 2% after the world's largest retailer reported Q3 earnings that topped expectations but sales that came in below the consensus forecast. Excluding currency impacts, however, revenue was $126.1B, an increase of 2.4% from the same period of last year. Walmart U.S. comp sales increased 3.4% in the period, which the company attributed to "broad-based strength and market share gains in key categories."
Shares of Cisco (CSCO) are reacting more positively to the company's quarterly report, rising 4% after the network equipment maker reported a positive fiscal Q1 that Piper Jaffray analyst James Fish said exceeded all metrics.
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was uniQure (QURE), which jumped 41% after it announced data from a dose-confirmation study of AMT-061. Also higher was Oracle (ORCL), which gained 2% after after Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) disclosed a new stake in the company taken during the third quarter.
Among the notable losers was PG&E (PCG), which fell 25% further after Morgan Stanley analyst Stephen Byrd downgraded the stock to Equal Weight from Overweight. The former bull sees an "unprecedented" level of uncertainty given that there is currently no liability cap that would be applied to 2018 wildfires. Also lower were Dillard's (DDS) and NetApp (NTAP), which declined a respective 15% and 12% after reporting quarterly results.
INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was down 76.05, or 0.3%, to 25,004.45, the Nasdaq was up 29.05, or 0.41%, to 7,165.44, and the S&P 500 was down 0.29, or 0.01%, to 2,701.29.
Walmart
-2.24 (-2.21%)
Cisco
+1.7 (+3.83%)
uniQure
+10.51 (+46.12%)
Oracle
+0.99 (+2.03%)
Berkshire Hathaway
-800 (-0.25%)
PG&E
-6.15 (-23.97%)
Dillard's
-10.85 (-14.74%)
NetApp
-8.87 (-11.36%)
Berkshire Hathaway
-0.61 (-0.28%)