US Stocks Edge Lower; Yum! Brands Earnings Beat Views

U.S. stocks traded slightly lower this morning, with the Nasdaq Composite dropping around 40 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded down 0.07% to 34,132.44 while the NASDAQ fell 0.33% to 12,073.74. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.25% to 4,153.57.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Information technology shares rose by 0.5% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT), up 12%, and Kyndryl Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:KD), up 13%.
• In trading on Wednesday, communication services shares dipped by 2.9%.

Top Headline

Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) reported better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

Excluding one-time items, the company earned $1.31 per share, beating expectations of $1.26 per share.

Equities Trading UP

• New Relic, Inc. (NYSE:NEWR) shares shot up 23% to $79.57 after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 results and issued strong guidance.
• Shares of Manchester United plc (NYSE:MANU) got a boost, shooting 14% to $24.00 following a Daily Mail report suggesting Qatari investors could soon make an offer for the company.
• TH International Limited (NASDAQ:THCH) shares were also up, gaining 14% to $4.79. Tims China acquired QSR Brands owned Popeyes China in an all share transaction.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Sintx Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SINT) shares tumbled 47% to $3.24 after the company announced pricing of $12 million public offering of 2.15 million units at a price of $5.60/unit
• Shares of Capri Holdings Limited (NYSE:CPRI) were down 24% to $50.47 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 adjusted EPS and sales results and lowered Q4 and FY23 EPS and sales guidance below estimates. The company also issued FY24 EPS and sales guidance below estimates.
• Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LUMN) was down, falling 18% to $4.1099 after the company reported Q4 earnings results. Following earnings, Citigroup downgraded the stock from Neutral to Sell and lowered its price target from $6.25 to $3.5.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.4% to $78.21 while gold traded up 0.6% at $1,895.20.

Silver traded up 1.3% to $22.455 on Wednesday while copper fell 0.3% to $4.0685.

Stocks of crude oil in the US fell by 2.184 million barrels in the week ended Feb. 3, 2023, versus a 6.330 million barrels gain in the prior week, the American Petroleum Institute said.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.8%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.6% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.8%. The German DAX rose 0.9% French CAC 40 rose 0.4% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.7%.

Retail sales in Italy dropped by 0.2% from a month ago in December.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly lower on Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping 0.29%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropping 0.07% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.49%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex gained 0.6%.

The Reserve Bank of India hiked its key repo rate by 25 bps to 6.5% at its February meeting. The gauge for Japan's service sector sentiment fell by 0.2 points from a month ago to 48.5 in January. Japan recorded a current account surplus of JPY 33.4 billion in December versus a surplus of JPY 1,803.6 billion in November.

Economics

Mortgage applications in the US rose 7.4% in the week ended Feb. 3, 2023.

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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 104,537,370 cases with around 1,136,960 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,683,630 cases and 530,740 deaths, while France reported over 39,548,110 COVID-19 cases with 164,460 deaths. In total, there were at least 676,702,070 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,775,010 deaths.