Mid-Day Market Update: Crude Oil Jumps Over 2%; Assembly Biosciences Shares Plunge
Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.42% to 35,461.47 while the NASDAQ rose 0.39% to 15,369.38. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.38% to 4,541.06.
The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 39,399,080 cases with around 642,090 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 32,857,930 cases and 439,520 deaths, while Brazil reported over 20,804,210 COVID-19 cases with 581,150 deaths. In total, there were at least 218,516,630 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,544,610 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Leading and Lagging Sectors
Energy shares gained 2.8% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Goodrich Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: GDP), up 16% and Laredo Petroleum, Inc. (NYSE: LPI) up 10%.
In trading on Thursday, real estate shares fell by 0.4%.
Top Headline
Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE: HRL) reported weaker-than-expected earnings for its third quarter and lowered its full-year earnings forecast.
Hormel Foods posted quarterly adjusted earnings of $0.39 per share, missing market estimates of $0.40 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $2.86 billion, versus estimates of $2.65 billion.
Hormel Foods said it now expects FY21 earnings of $1.65 to $1.69 per share, down from previous forecast of $1.70 to $1.82 per share. The company, however, raised its sales forecast to $11 billion to $11.2 billion.
Equities Trading UP
Innate Pharma S.A. (NASDAQ: IPHA) shares shot up 34% to $4.74. Innate Pharma said two oral presentations will be highlighted at the ESMO 2021 Virtual Congress.
Shares of Data Storage Corporation (NASDAQ: DTST) got a boost, shooting 25% to $4.89 after the company reported a collaboration with Precisely.
Sphere 3D Corp. (NASDAQ: ANY) shares were also up, gaining 36% to $9.02 as traders circulate a tweet from popular Twitter trader Will Meade saying 'Long $ANY this is the next $SPRT and they have a very good management team.'
Check out these big movers of the day
Equities Trading DOWN
Assembly Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASMB) shares tumbled 17% to $3.2196. Assembly Biosciences decided to discontinue the development of ABI-H2158 (2158) following the observation of elevated alanine transaminase (ALT) levels consistent with drug-induced hepatotoxicity (liver damage) in the Phase 2 trial. William Blair downgraded Assembly Biosciences from Outperform to Market Perform.
Shares of Meten EdtechX Education Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: METX) were down 53% to $0.4345 after the company priced its 200 million share offering at $0.30 per share.
Phreesia, Inc. (NYSE: PHR) was down, falling 12% to $61.17 after the company reported a wider loss for the second quarter.
Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 2.7% to $70.42, while gold traded down 0.1% to $1,814.90.
Silver traded down 1.2% Thursday to $23.94 while copper rose 0.5% to $4.2985.
Euro zone
European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.32%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.02% and the German DAX 30 gained 0.02%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.22%, French CAC 40 rose 0.1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.2%.
Producer prices in the Eurozone increased 2.3% in July. The number of people registered as unemployed in Spain fell 82,583 to 3.3 million in August.
Economics
US-based employers reported 15,723 job cuts in August.
The US trade deficit shrank to $70 billion in July. Exports from the US rose 1.3% to $212.9 billion in July, while imports slipped 0.2% to $282.9 billion.
US initial jobless claims dropped to 340,000 in the week ending August 28th, recording its lowest level since March 2020.
Unit labor costs rose an annualized 1.3% in the second quarter, while nonfarm labor productivity rose by an annualized 2.1%.
US factory orders rose 0.4% for July.
US natural-gas supplies climbed 20 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.
The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 8-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.
Check out the full economic calendar here
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