Stocks are lower in mid-day trading as economic data from China
and bank earnings hit investor confidence. Unemployment claims
stateside remained level with the previous week, providing no lift
for stocks through the first half of the trading day.
China's customs bureau reported exports rising 17.1% last month
compared to the same period last year. That was less than
expected.
The Labor Department reported that about 400,000 people filed
new applications for unemployment benefits last week, keeping
claims at a level typically associated with weak hiring trends.
Initial jobless claims inched down by 1,000 last week to 404,000,
the Labor Department reported. Initial claims from two weeks ago
were revised up to 405,000 from an original reading of 401,000. The
average of new claims over the past four weeks fell by 7,000 to
stand at 408,000, marking the lowest level since mid-August.
Before the bell, JPMorgan Chase (
JPM
) reported third quarter earnings of $1.02 per share, including
items, vs. the Street view of $0.91 per share, which generally
excludes items. Revenue was $24.4 billion, better than the analyst
consensus of $23.4 billion, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Still, profit fell 4% on higher non-interest cost, which drew
investor attention. Shares are down over 5%.
In company news:
BP (
BP
) is developing four new oil and gas projects that together will
involve a total investment of nearly 10 billion pounds ($15.7
billion) in the U.K. oil industry over the next five years,
MarketWatch reports.
AOL (
AOL
) CEO Tim Armstrong has been meeting with top shareholders in the
past couple of weeks to push the idea of a sale to Yahoo (
YHOO
) that could wring up to $1.5 billion of cost savings, Reuters
reports, citing sources with knowledge of the discussions. AOL
shares are up over 6%.
ISTA Pharmaceuticals (
ISTA
) shares are down 5% after the company said top-line results from
the second of its two Phase 3 studies to evaluate the short-term
safety and efficacy of two concentrations of REMURA in alleviating
the signs and symptoms of dry eye disease showed REMURA was highly
effective in treating a sign and symptom of dry eye but was not
statistically significantly better than placebo in the entire
patient cohort.
British banks are struggling in after Fitch downgrades Lloyds
(LYG) and RBS (RBS) to A from AA-, putting Barclays' (BCS) AA-
rating on negative watch.
CBS (CBS) and Warner Bros. Television Group's joint-venture, The
CW, announced today that it has entered a licensing agreement with
Netflix (NFLX) granting the video rental company the rights to
stream more than 700 hours of previous-season CW shows, as well as
future programs. NFLX and CBS shares are mixed.
In other earnings news:
--Safeway (SWY) says Q3 EPS were $0.38, above the Thomson
Reuters mean for $0.35. Sales were $10.1 billion, topping estimates
for $9.86 billion. Identical-store sales, excluding fuel, are
expected to be approximately 1.0% for the year.
--Clearwire (CLWR) says Q3 sales are expected to be
approximately $332 million, compared with the Thomson Reuters mean
for $322.08 million.
Commodities are down. December gold contracts are down 1.06% to
$1,664 an ounce while November crude oil contacts are down 1.75% to
$84.07 a barrel.
In energy ETFs, the United States Oil Fund (USO) is down 1.46%
to $32.44 and the United States Natural Gas fund (UNG) is up 1.4%,
to $8.68.
In precious metal ETFs, the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) is down 0.94%
to $161.73. Market Vectors Gold Miners (GDX) is down 2.42% to
$56.01. iShares Silver Trust (SLV) is down 3.08% to $30.79.