Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Higher; Crude Oil Dips 8%

U.S. stocks opened on a strong note this morning, with the Dow Jones gaining 300 points on Monday.

Following the market opening Monday, the Dow traded up 0.99% to 33,269.95 while the NASDAQ rose 0.40% to 12,895.19. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.62% to 4,230.27.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Financials shares climbed by 2.2% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft DB, up 10% and Sculptor Capital Management, Inc. SCU up 10%.

In trading on Monday, energy shares fell by 3.5%.

Top Headline

Russia sought China's military equipment to support its invasion of Ukraine, Financial Times reported citing U.S. officials. The U.S. looks to caution its allies against China's possible assistance to Russia.

Equities Trading UP

Volt Information Sciences, Inc. VOLT shares shot up 95% to $5.89 after the company announced it would be acquired for $6 per share.

Shares of Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. TRQ got a boost, shooting 32% to $26.62 after Rio Tinto proposed to acquire the company at C$34 per share.

AgriFORCE Growing Systems, Ltd. AGRI shares were also up, gaining 29% to $4.0750.

Equities Trading DOWN

Nektar Therapeutics NKTR shares tumbled 54% to $4.89 after the company's Phase 3 PIVOT trial did not meet its primary endpoint.

Shares of Kingsoft Cloud Holdings Limited KC were down 34% to $3.2799. JP Morgan downgraded Kingsoft Cloud from Neutral to Underweight and announced a $3.5 price target.

MultiPlan Corporation MPLN was down, falling 23% to $3.78.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 8% to $100.64, while gold traded down 0.9% to $1,966.70.

Silver traded down 1.7% Monday to $25.705 while copper fell 2% to $4.5355.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 1.2%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.4%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 1.7%. The German DAX gained 2.7%, French CAC 40 gained 1.5% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 2%.

French current account deficit declined to EUR 1.79 billion in January from EUR 7.04 billion in the prior month, while trade deficit shrank to EUR 8.03 billion from EUR 11.39 billion. Wholesale price inflation in Germany increased 16.6% year-over-year in February.

Economics

There were no major US economic releases Monday.

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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 81,174,670 cases with around 993,810 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 42,993,490 cases and 515,900 deaths, while Brazil reported over 29,368,770 COVID-19 cases with 655,130 deaths. In total, there were at least 458,633,270 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,066,830 deaths.