Many Arkansas-based stocks get caught up in market sell off

U.S. stocks took a hard fall in late trading on Friday as interest rate fears spooked the Dow Jones and S&P 500 indices, dragging down publicly-traded Arkansas concerns almost across the board.

Yet, out of Friday’s late market sell-off, Dillard’s again was one of the biggest Arkansas advancers, continuing its march upward following the Little Rock retailer’s robust fourth-quarter and full-year earnings report in late February. For the period ended Dec. 31, Dillard’s reported fourth-quarter and yearly profits of $130 million and $331 million, respectively.

A week ago, the Dillard’s board handed out a cash dividend of six cents per share, payable on May 4 to shareholders of record as of March 31, 2015. Since closing at $122.53 on Feb. 23, Dillard’s shares have gained 7.7% to close at $131.95 at Friday’s close.

Other winners in this week’s session included Arkansas’ regional banking rivals, Simmons First National, Bank of the Ozarks and Home Bancshares. Banking stocks rallied this week after 31 of the nation’s largest financial institutions passed the Federal Reserve’s so-called “stress test” that measures capital as a share of risk-weighted assets.

After Friday’s dip, still most banking stocks were back up in late trading Friday as several reports signaled that the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates between June and September.

ARCBEST LEADS DECLINERS FOLLOWING UNUSUAL MARKET BLIP
But Arkansas’ remaining publicly-traded concerns lost ground in this week’s choppy session. One of the biggest decliners was ArcBest Corp., which had an unusual blip in trading earlier in the week. The Fort Smith trucking and logistics company’s shares fell more than 7% in early trading on Tuesday, March 3, from a high of $43.59 at the opening bell to $39.35 by midday.

The trucker’s shares settled around the $40 mark for the remainder of the week, but company officials have given no explanation for the sudden four-hour disruption in its stock in the week’s earlier session. Incidentally, ArcBest President and CEO Judy McReynolds spoke to a group of institutional investors in Orlando, Fla., about the same time the company’s shares backed up seven percentage points on Tuesday.

Other decliners for the week were Wal-Mart, Murphy Oil, Murphy USA, J.B. Hunt, Acxiom, Carmart and Tyson Foods. Windstream, which recently spun off its network into a publicly-traded real estate investment trust (REIT), also lost ground in the weekly session, closing at a new 52-week low of $7.76.

Deltic Timber also failed to gain momentum as its shares fell from a high of $66.74 at Wednesday’s opening bell to $65 at Friday’s close. Deltic did have some insider activity as CEO Ray Dillon sold off nearly 9,000 of his shares in the El Dorado-based timber and real estate company.

BROADER MARKET
In the broader market, most of the major benchmarks closed lower on Friday, losing ground on Friday as investors’ took profits as strong employment figures stoked fears that the Fed will raise interest rates sooner than expected.

According to Reuters, the S&P 500 fell 1.6% while the Dow slid 1.5% and the Nasdaq dropped 0.7%. The S&P and the Dow both ended the day more than 2 percent lower than their March 2 records. The S&P saw its biggest percentage decline since early January on Friday.

The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial index includes market bellwether Wal-Mart and 29 of the nation’s largest public companies. Murphy Oil, Tyson and Windstream are all part of the broader S&P 500 index.