Dreary Manufacturing Data Keeps Dow in the Red
Wall Street is also watching heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) is down more than 240 points at midday, as Wall Street weighs news a U.S. airstrike had killed top Iranian military commander, Qassem Soleimani. Iran's promise of "harsh retaliation" in response to the attack is only stoking the bearish flames, while traders are also digesting weak factory data, with the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) manufacturing index hitting a 10-year low of 47.2 in December. Oil prices, meanwhile, are spiking, with February-dated crude up 3.1% at $63.05 per barrel.
Continue reading for more on today's market, including:
Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) is seeing unusual options activity today, as the social media stock bucks the bearish broad-market bias to trade up 1.5% at $17.02. Call options continue to be preferred, with roughly 61,000 calls on the tape, compared to 14,000 puts. Speculators may be buying to open the weekly 1/10 17-strike call to bet on bigger gains through the close next Friday, Jan. 10.
Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ:INCY) is near the bottom of the Nasdaq today, on news the company's graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) therapy, itacitinib, failed to meet its main goal in a late-stage study. A round of bear notes has ensued -- including a downgrade to "neutral" from "buy" at Mizuho -- with INCY down 10.9% at $76.64.
GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME) is one of the worst stocks on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) today, down 5.8% at $5.95. The shares of the video game retailer had bounced off their late-December lows near $5.25, but ran headlong into familiar resistance at their 200-day moving average.
