Cobalt International bounces around before 10-point gain; FirstEnergy rises; pharma mixed

By Colin Hanner

Chicago, April 7 – The distressed market was “lackluster” on Friday, a trader said, with notable distressed names continuing to dominate the most-active list.

“Treasuries were down, stocks were teetering here and there,” a trader said. “There was just not a lot of conviction heading into the weekend. Clearly, after lot of newsworthy stuff was going on with Syria. People don’t want to have a lot of conviction on bets before heading into the weekend.”

Perhaps the second-biggest headline after the bombing of a Syrian airbase by U.S. forces was the release of nonfarm payrolls for March, which came in lower than expected though a trader said that news had cleared out by the afternoon to cap off a day of low volume.

For the third-straight session, crude oil future prices continued to rally, as did many related exploration and production companies, traders said.

California Resources Corp. was down on the session, but one of the wider movements of the day was from oil and exploration company Cobalt International Energy, Inc., which traded into the double digits during intraday trading before paring those gains mid-day.

Akron, Ohio-based energy company FirstEnergy Corp. fared as well as Cobalt, though a trader said he did not see a reason behind it.

Pharmaceutical companies were mixed on the session.

Upscale retailer Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. was up or flat in two of its issues, respectively.

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