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El Pollo Loco Holdings Inc. sank in Thursday’s extended session after the Mexican-themed fastfood chain posted quarterly revenue below expectations and trimmed its earnings range for the full year. El Pollo Loco reported its third-quarter earnings fell to $4.7 million, or 12 cents a share, from $25.8 million, or 70 cents a share, a year ago. On an adjusted basis, the company, whose name means “the crazy chicken” in Spanish, earned 18 cents a share, ahead of the 15 cents a share forecast by analysts in a FactSet survey. Revenue increased to $88.9 million from $86.6 million but missed analysts’ projection of $90.4 million. El Pollo Loco revised down the top end of its 2015 adjusted EPS range and now expects earnings in a range of 67 cents a share to 69 cents a share compared with its previous outlook of 67 cents a share to 71 cents a share. Shares of El Pollo Loco skidded 4.5% in after-hours trading.

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The S&P 500 Index is on track to close below its 200-day moving average, after just 14 sessions above that line. That’s the shortest uninterrupted stretch above the 200-day MA, which many chart watchers sees as a dividing line between uptrends and downtrends, since the last five sessions of 2011, when it closed above the line three times and below it twice. Recently, the index had closed above its 200-day MA for 29-straight sessions this summer, between July 10 to Aug. 19. When that streak ended, the stock tumbled 10% in the next four sessions before bouncing. The S&P 500 has down 1.1% in late afternoon trade at 2051, while the 200-day MA comes in at 2064, according to FactSet; that also puts the index on course to close in negative territory for the year after 14-straight sessions in positive territory.

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The federal government ran a budget deficit of $136 billion in October, up 12% or $15 billion from the same month last year, the Treasury Department said Thursday. Spending in the first month of the fiscal year was $348 billion, up 4% from October 2014. Total receipts were $211 billion, a 1% decrease. The Treasury said the October deficit would have been $80 billion if not for the shifts in timing of some payments. The Treasury said receipts were hurt because there was one less Wednesday in October compared to last year. The government’s budget year runs from October through September.

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Gold futures finished lower Thursday, extending a slide for the precious metal that pushed prices to their lowest level in about five years Wednesday. December gold was $3.90, or 0.4%, lower to settle at $1,081 an ounce. The yellow metal is on track to post a weekly decline, its fourth in a row, marking its longest weekly losing streak since the week ended June 26, which kicked off five straight weeks of declines, FactSet data show.

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Shares of GoPro Inc. fell 6% to as low as $23.44 in early afternoon trade, dipping below its $24 IPO price for the first time. The stock has fallen around 60% over the last three months, vastly underperforming the S&P 500, down just 1.5%. Short interest on the stock has also reached record highs, quadrupling over the last 12 months to 33.2 million as of Nov. 1, the last time FactSet adjusted its short-interest data, compared with 8.2 million a year ago. The company’s stock has been in freefall since August, with analysts reporting lackluster demand for its new mini-camera, the Hero4 Session, and the company reporting weaker-than-expected third-quarter earnings in October. Last week, the stock took another hit when Polaroid filed a patent suit against GoPro’s Session camera. Sungard Astec Analytics, which tracks short interest, has named GoPro the No. 1 “hot stock” for shorts in the U.S. for two straight weeks. “Demand to borrow on the stock exceeds supply,” Sungard said.

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The cost of protecting debt issued by Avon Products Inc. against a potential default is at a record high, on concerns about liquidity, revenue, margins and cash flow, Fitch Solutions said Thursday. Five-year credit-default swaps written on Avon debt have widened by 22% in the last month to a record 1,109 basis points, said Fitch. Swaps have widened as much as 130% since the beginning of the year. “Avon liquidity has tightened but remains adequate in the near term,” said Fitch. The company has said free cash flow will be below the $100 million guidance it provided five months ago, and cash balances have shrunk by more than $370 million since year-end 2014. “Additionally, as the company evaluates the foreign exchange (F/X) impact on cash and cash flow into 2016, the $100 million or so in dividends could be in jeopardy,” said Fitch. “While a dividend cut would be positive for creditors, it is also a signal of increased pressure on liquidity.” Fitch downgraded Avon’s rating to B+ from BB- on Nov. 5, placing it four notches below investment grade. The outlook is negative, which means it could downgrade the rating again in the medium term.

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — New York Fed President William Dudley suggested the central bank may lift interest rates as early as next month. “I think it is quite possible that the conditions the Committee has established to begin to normalize monetary policy could soon be satisfied,” said Dudley, who gets a vote at each Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Dudley included a line that he wasn’t saying his views toward action in December. Domestic demand continues to grow at a solid pace, and the fundamentals supporting domestic growth look sturdy. The international outlook appears less problematic than it did just a few months ago, he added. But he said he had greater concerns on inflation because it continues to fall substantially short of its 2% target and that inflation expectations are under downward pressure. He expects the pace of tightening will be quite gradual once lift-off occurs.

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – Two Federal Reserve officials said Thursday that the U.S. central bank might not be able to stick to its pledge of gradual rate hikes once they start raising interest rates. In comments to reporters after speeches at the Cato Institute, Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said the Fed’s pledge to move at a gradual pace was simply a forecast. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said he expected the Fed would not hike rates as fast as they did in 1994 or between 2004 and 2006 but added the Fed would have to respond and hike at a faster pace if the economy showed marked improvement. Both Lacker and Bullard said that their “dots,” or expected level of interest rates, are higher than the Fed’s median forecast in the dot plot of 1% by the end of 2016.

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Karma Automotive, a reboot of Fisker Automotive Inc., once a maker of luxury hybrid cars that shadowed Tesla Motors Inc. , said Thursday it will get powertrain components from BMW AG . Karma will use the BMW systems in its plug-in hybrid car expected to re-launch in 2016, the company said. Fisker filed for bankruptcy in late 2013, and in early 2014 China’s Wanxiang Group bought it and renamed it Karma. It’s one and only car, the Karma, was a luxury plug-in hybrid that launched in 2011. Production of the car, which cost about $103,000 and attracted celebrity buyers, ended in 2012.

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Oil prices lost more ground on Thursday after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported an increase of 4.2 million barrels in crude supplies for the week ended Nov. 6. The American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday had reported a 6.3 million-barrel rise, while analysts polled by The Wall Street Journal expected supplies to be up by 1.1 million barrels. Gasoline supplies fell by 2.1 million barrels, while distillate stockpiles rose 400,000 barrels last week, according to the EIA. December crude traded at $42.22 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange immediately after the data were released, down 71 cents, or 1.7%. Prices traded at $42.27 a barrel before the report.

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