Dow Tumbles 150 Points; Crude Oil Falls Sharply

U.S. stocks turned lower midway through trading, with the Dow Jones dropping around 150 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded down 0.46% to 33,088.64 while the NASDAQ fell 0.82% to 10,268.33. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.61% to 3,806.06.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares rose by 0.1% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Pharvaris N.V. PHVS, up 15%, and Summit Therapeutics Inc. SMMT, up 11%.

In trading on Wednesday, energy shares fell by 2%.

Top Headline

US pending home sales dropped 4% month-over-month in November, recording a sixth straight monthly drop.

Equities Trading UP

• Kala Pharmaceuticals, Inc. KALA shares shot up 117% to $8.49 after the company announced FDA acceptance of a IND application for its KPI-012 for the treatment of persistent corneal epithelial defect.
• Shares of Minerva Surgical, Inc. UTRS got a boost, shooting 90% to $0.3084 after the company reported a $30 million private placement of common stock led by Accelmed Partners.
• Gorilla Technology Group Inc. GRRR shares were also up, gaining 52% to $6.84 after the company announced it is entering the MENA region with a security convergence offering in a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Minerva Neurosciences, Inc. NERV shares tumbled 30% to $1.64. Minerva Neurosciences confirmed that the FDA's refuse letter from October 14, 2022 remains in effect.
• Shares of Unicycive Therapeutics, Inc. UNCY were down 20% to $0.5350. Unicycive Therapeutics’ pivotal bioequivalence (BE) study comparing Renazorb to Fosrenol has met the primary endpoint.
• Tuesday Morning Corporation TUEM was down, falling 24% to $0.63. Tuesday Morning recently announced it will voluntarily delist from the Nasdaq Capital Market.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 2.4% to $77.62 while gold traded down 0.9% at $1,806.50.

Silver traded down 1.8% to $23.77 on Wednesday while copper fell 0.3% to $3.8280.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 0.07%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.44% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.09%. The German DAX fell 0.43%, French CAC 40 slipped 0.57% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.51%.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Wednesday, with the Japan’s Nikkei dropping 0.41%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 1.56% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.26%.

Industrial production in Japan declined by 0.1% month-over-month in November versus a 3.2% drop in October.

Economics

• US pending home sales dropped 4% month-over-month in November, recording a sixth straight monthly drop.
• The Richmond Fed manufacturing index edged higher to 1 in December from -9 a month ago, while sector Activity revenues index declined to -12 in December from -2.

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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 102,307,320 cases with around 1,116,360 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,678,760 cases and 530,690 deaths, while France reported over 39,159,750 COVID-19 cases with 161,150 deaths. In total, there were at least 662,976,660 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,689,300 deaths.