Dow Jumps Over 300 Points; Best Buy Profit Beats Views

U.S. stocks traded higher toward the end of trading, with the Dow Jones gaining more than 300 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.97% to 32,978.95 while the NASDAQ rose 0.59% to 11,446.55. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.61% to 3,975.37.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Utilities shares rose 1.2% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Enel Chile S.A. ENIC, up 2%, and TransAlta Corporation TAC, up 2%.
• In trading on Thursday, financial shares fell by 1.3%.

Top Headline

Best Buy Co Inc BBY reported better-than-expected Q4 results and issued guidance.

Best Buy reported a revenue decline of 10% year-on-year to $14.735 billion, beating the consensus of $14.720 billion. Adjusted EPS of $2.61 beat the consensus of $2.11.

Best Buy expects adjusted diluted EPS of $5.70 - $6.50, below the consensus of $6.71.

Equities Trading UP

• BioRestorative Therapies, Inc. BRTX shares shot up 33% to $3.72 after the company announced the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a notice of allowance for a patent application related to the Company's metabolic ThermoStem program.
• Shares of Diversified Healthcare Trust DHC got a boost, shooting 61% to $1.4948 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 sales results.
• Desktop Metal, Inc. DM shares were also up, gaining 28% to $1.91 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 sales results and issued guidance.

Equities Trading DOWN

• ZimVie Inc. ZIMV shares tumbled 37% to $6.64 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 adjusted EPS and sales results and issued FY23 adjusted EPS and net sales guidance below estimates.
• Shares of Silvergate Capital Corporation SI were down 49% to $6.89 after the company delayed the filing of its Form 10-K with the SEC.
• Cano Health, Inc. CANO was down, falling 18% to $1.2850 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 earnings and issued weak FY23 revenue guidance.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.1% to $77.64 while gold traded down 0.3% at $1,840.60.

Silver traded down 1% to $20.885 on Thursday while copper fell 2.3% to $4.0645.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.51%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.37% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.05%. The German DAX gained 0.15% French CAC 40 rose 0.69% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.30%.

France’s government budget deficit increased to EUR 21.2 billion in January from EUR 16 billion in the year-ago period.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping 0.06%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropping 0.92% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index declining 0.05%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex dropped 0.8%.

Retail sales in Hong Kong rose 5.1% year-over-year in January following a revised 0.6% drop in the prior month. The consumer confidence index in Japan rose to 31.1 in February from 31.0 in the prior month.

Economics

• US jobless claims fell by 2,000 from the prior week to 190,000 for the week ending Feb. 25, compared to market estimates of 195,000.
• Unit labor costs rose by an annualized 3.2% in the fourth quarter, while nonfarm business sector labor productivity growth was revised lower to 1.7% in the quarter.
• US natural-gas supplies declined 81 billion cubic feet during the week ended Feb. 24, 2023, the EIA said.

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COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 105,345,990 cases with around 1,146,140 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,686,870 cases and 530,770 deaths, while France reported over 39,626,750 COVID-19 cases with 164,980 deaths. In total, there were at least 680,206,720 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,801,720 deaths.