US Stocks Turn Higher; Nasdaq Rises 75 Points

U.S. stocks turned higher midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining around 75 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.03% to 33,493.75 while the NASDAQ rose 0.62% to 12,071.13. The S&P 500, also rose, gaining, 0.24% to 4,100.00.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Utilities shares rose by 0.1% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Cadiz Inc. CDZI, up 7%, and Central Puerto S.A. CEPU, up 2%.
• In trading on Thursday, consumer discretionary fell by 0.8%.

Top Headline

Costco Wholesale Corp COST reported net sales of $21.71 billion for the month of March, up 0.5% on a year-over-year basis, while U.S. comparable sales dropped 1.5% during the month.

Equities Trading UP

• Skillz Inc. SKLZ shares shot up 15% to $0.6318. Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise acquired a total 1,500,000 shares an average price of $0.56.
• Shares of TH International Limited THCH got a boost, shooting 16% to $4.37. TH International posted Q4 earnings of $0.11 per share on sales of $43.71 million.
• AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. AMC shares were also up, gaining 21% to $4.8890 after a Delaware Court denied the company's request to proceed with its plan for increasing authorized common shares, a stock conversion and reverse split.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Levi Strauss & Co. LEVI shares dropped 15% to $15.35 after the company reported Q1 financial results and issued FY23 guidance.
• Shares of Richardson Electronics, Ltd. RELL were down 18% to $17.77 following Q3 results.
• AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. APE was down, falling 13% to $1.4901 after a Delaware Court denied AMC's request to proceed with its plan for increasing authorized common shares, a stock conversion and reverse split.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.2% to $80.43 while gold traded down 0.5% at $2,025.10.

Silver traded down 0.4% to $24.94 on Thursday while copper fell 0.1% to $3.9850.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.51%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 1% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.68%. The German DAX rose 0.45%, French CAC 40 rose 0.2% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 1.12%.

The S&P Global Eurozone construction PMI fell to 45.0 in March from 47.6 the previous month, while French construction PMI rose to 45.3 in March from 45.2 a month ago. The S&P Global/CIPS UK construction PMI fell to 50.7 in March from 54.6 in the prior month, while Italian construction PMI dropped to 47.4 in March from 48.9 a month ago. The S&P Global German construction PMI slipped to 42.9 in March from February’s reading of 48.6.

The Halifax house price index increased by 1.6% from a year ago in March, while industrial production in Germany rose 2% month-over-month in February.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping 1.22%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gaining 0.28% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index adding 0.01%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.12%.

The Reserve Bank of India unexpectedly held its benchmark policy repo at 6.5% at its April meeting. The Caixin China general services PMI rose to 57.8 in March from 55.0 in the previous month, while S&P Global Hong Kong PMI fell to 53.5 in March. Australian trade surplus widened to AUD 13.87 billion in February from a revised AUD 11.27 billion in the previous month.

Economics

• U.S. jobless claims dropped by 18 thousand to 228 thousand in the week ending April 1.
• U.S. natural-gas supplies dropped 23 billion cubic feet last week, 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 106,305,770 cases with around 1,156,300 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,739,050 cases and 530,920 deaths, while France reported over 39,817,650 COVID-19 cases with 165,790 deaths. In total, there were at least 684,466,450 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,834,980 deaths.