Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Falls Over 100 Points; Silver Down 1%

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.36% to 30,295.92 while the NASDAQ fell 0.36% to 12,853.18. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.23% to 3,726.68.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 19,310,590 cases with around 334,960 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 10,224,300 confirmed cases and 148,150 deaths, while Brazil reported over 7,504,830 COVID-19 cases with 191,570 deaths. In total, there were at least 81,380,390 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 1,776,990 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer discretionary shares climbed 0.4% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Pinduoduo Inc. PDD, up 15%, and Cango Inc. CANG, up 15%.

In trading on Tuesday, industrials shares fell 1.2%.

Top Headline

The House passed a bill Monday raising the payment to $2,000, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will try to pass the House bill by unanimous consent Tuesday.

Republicans are expected to object, which might mean a vote in a few days that would require 60 senators.

Equities Trading UP

Universal Security Instruments, Inc. UUU shares shot up 82% to $5.60. DPW Holdings, earlier during the month, entered into agreement to purchase a 9.9% equity interest in Universal Security Instruments.

Shares of Technical Communications Corporation TCCO got a boost, shooting 58% to $6.13. Technical Communications, on Monday, reported a net loss of $0.49 per share, on revenue of $4,108,000 for the year ended September 26, 2020.

Caesarstone Ltd. CSTE shares were also up, gaining 20% to $12.93. Benchmark initiated coverage on Caesarstone with a Buy rating.

Equities Trading DOWN

Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc. ARCT shares tumbled 52% to $44.23 after the company provided an update on data from its vaccine candidate, ARCT-021. Following the update, multiple firms, including Baird, HC Wainwright & Co and Raymond James downgraded ratings on the stock.

Shares of Ameri Holdings, Inc. AMRH were down 51% to $1.83 after the company announced stockholders approved all proposals to complete the tender offer for Jay Pharma shares.

Monaker Group, Inc MKGI was down, falling 32% to $2.41. Monaker Group increased size of its offering from 2.6 million shares to 3.08 million shares at $2.50 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.5% to $47.84, while gold traded up 0.1% to $1,882.20.

Silver traded down 1% Tuesday to $26.27 while copper fell 0.6% to $3.5480.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly higher today on continued optimism over Britain and the European Union signing the Brexit trade deal. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.76%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.24% and German DAX 30 slipped 0.21%. Meanwhile, the French CAC 40 rose 0.42%, London’s FTSE 100 gained 1.55% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.13%.

Economics

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index rose 0.4% during the first four weeks of December versus November.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index increased 7.9% year-over-year in October, versus a 6.6% increase in the prior month.