Stocks declined for the second straight day on Wednesday, with the volatile session capping a turbulent month that not only saw the broader indexes enter correction territory -- falling as much as 12% in just two weeks -- but also left investors cheering as the market quickly clawed back around half of those losses.
After a late plunge to end the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 0.56%) fell around 1.5%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.88%) ended down 1.1%.
Today's stock market
| Index | Percentage Change | Point Change |
|---|---|---|
| Dow | (1.50%) | (380.83) |
| S&P 500 | (1.11%) | (30.45) |
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
Retail stocks bucked the negative trend, reversing part of yesterday's losses with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 0.68%) up 0.2%. But oil stocks led today's declines, with reports of higher U.S. oil production and growing inventories causing the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration and Production ETF (XOP 1.05%) to fall 2.7%.
As for individual stocks, Celgene (CELG) plunged following a setback for its promising multiple sclerosis drug, while a strong earnings report from Etsy (ETSY -0.86%) sent shares of the specialty e-commerce site skyward.
Image source: Getty Images.
Celgene's latest setback
Shares of Celgene dropped 9% today after the biotech giant revealed that it has received a Refusal to File letter from the U.S Food and Drug Administration regarding its New Drug Application (NDA) for ozanimod, a drug candidate meant to treat relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis.
The FDA argued that it needs more information to perform a complete review of the nonclinical and clinical pharmacology sections of Celgene's NDA. Celgene purchased ozanimod as part of its $7.2 billion acquisition of Receptos, a biotech leader focusing on immune and metabolic diseases, in 2015.
Celgene, for its part, says it will "seek immediate guidance" to determine what additional information the FDA requires, and insists it remains confident in ozanimod's clinical profile.
"We will work with the FDA to expeditiously address all outstanding items and bring this important medicine to patients," added Jay Backstrom, M.D., Celgene's chief medical officer and head of global regulatory affairs.
Nonetheless, as Celgene struggles to diversify its sales away from its core multiple myeloma treatment business, it's unsurprising to see the stock being punished today.
Etsy's earnings blowout
Meanwhile, shares of Etsy skyrocketed 20.4% today after the handmade and vintage e-commerce website announced impressive fourth-quarter 2017 results. Etsy's quarterly revenue climbed 23.6% year over year to $136.3 million, while adjusted net income arrived at $0.15 per share, swinging from a loss of $0.19 per share in the same year-ago period. Analysts, on average, were only expecting adjusted earnings of $0.09 per share on roughly the same revenue.
In addition, Etsy saw gross merchandise sales (GMS) accelerate, growing 17.8% year over year to $1.019 billion and topping the 10-figure mark for the first time.
Etsy CEO Josh Silverman called it a "good" quarter, crediting his company's creation of a "more engaging experience for buyers" and strong, broad-based growth in all core markets.
If that wasn't enough, Etsy told investors to expect GMS to increase in the range of 14% to 16% in 2018, which should translate to full-year revenue growth of 21% to 23%. By contrast, Wall Street was anticipating 2018 revenue growth being closer to 18%.
In the end, there was nothing not to like about this straightforward quarterly beat from Etsy, which it followed with an optimistic view of the coming year. As such, it's hard to blame investors for bidding shares up to a fresh 52-week high in response.
