Rent-A-Center Shares Fall On Downbeat Forecast; Lorillard Surges

Related BZSUM Markets Mostly Lower; Wells Fargo Posts In-Line Profit #PreMarket Primer: Friday, July 11: European Banks May Not Be Out Of The Woods Yet

Midway through trading Friday, the Dow traded down 0.20 percent to 16,880.71 while the NASDAQ gained 0.06 percent to 4,399.03. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.14 percent to 1,961.93.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Telecommunications services shares gained around 0.25 percent in today’s trading. Top gainers in the sector included NQ Mobile (NYSE: NQ), Allot Communications (NASDAQ: ALLT), and SK Telecom Co (NYSE: SKM).

In trading on Friday, energy shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 0.40 percent. Top losers in the sector included Callon Petroleum Company (NYSE: CPE), down 5 percent, and Tesco (NASDAQ: TESO), off 3.9 percent.

Top Headline

Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE: WFC) reported a gain in its second-quarter profit.

Wells Fargo’s quarterly profit surged to $5.7 billion, or $1.01 per share, from a year-ago profit of $5.5 billion, or $0.98 per share.

Its revenue declined 3.4% to $21.1 billion from $21.4 billion. However, analysts were expecting a profit of $1.01 per share on revenue of $20.84 billion.

Equities Trading UP

ChannelAdvisor (NYSE: ECOM) shares shot up 5.14 percent to $24.35. Deutsche Bank upgraded Channel Advisor from Hold to Buy. ChannelAdvisor is expected to release its Q2 financial results on August 4, 2014.

Shares of Lorillard (NYSE: LO) got a boost, shooting up 3.85 percent to $65.52. Lorillard confirmed that Lorillard and Reynolds American (NYSE: RAI) are engaged in discussions regarding RAI's potential acquisition of Lorillard. Cowen & Company initiated coverage on Lorillard with a Underperform rating.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) shares were also up, gaining 4.17 percent to $341.61. Amazon.com’s June same-store sales grew 34 percent, according to the e-commerce market research shop ChannelAdvisor.

Equities Trading DOWN

Shares of Kofax (NASDAQ: KFX) were down 9.83 percent to $7.29 after the company reported selected preliminary unaudited results for FY14. Kofax expected FY14 sales of $295.0 million to $298.0 million.

Rent-A-Center (NASDAQ: RCII) shares tumbled 11.22 percent to $25.80 after the company issued a downbeat guidance for the second quarter. The company expected adjusted earnings of $0.36 to $0.38 per share on revenue of around $773 million.

MGIC Investment (NYSE: MTG) was down, falling 10.50 percent to $8.27 following the FHFA proposal. The company released monthly operating statistics for June.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.42 percent to $101.47, while gold traded down 0.16 percent to $1,337.10.

Silver traded down 0.01 percent Friday to $21.51, while copper fell 0.14 percent to $3.26.

Eurozone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.14 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index surged 0.05 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.62 percent. Meanwhile, the German DAX rose 0.07 percent and the French CAC 40 climbed 0.35 percent while UK shares gained 0.07 percent.

Economics

The US Treasury monthly budget report for June will be released at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Posted-In: Earnings News Guidance Upgrades Eurozone Futures Commodities M&A

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