Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Down Over 2%; Miragen Therapeutics Shares Climb

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.49% to 28592.38 while the NASDAQ fell 0.49% to 9,229.29. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.53% to 3,256.18.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer staples shares climbed 0.4% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Archer-Daniels-Midland Company ADM, up 5%, and The Hershey Company HSY, up 4%.

In trading on Thursday, materials shares fell 1.5%.

Top Headline

Coca-Cola Co KO reported in-line earnings for its fourth quarter, while sales exceeded views

Coca-Cola reported fourth-quarter earnings of 44 cents per share on Thursday, which met the analyst consensus estimate. The company reported quarterly sales of $9.1 billion, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $8.85 billion.

Coca-Cola expects FY20 adjusted earnings of $2.25 per share and organic sales growth of 5% year-over-year.


Equities Trading UP

Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc INO shares shot up 15% to $4.71 after the company announced it is collaborating with Beijing Advaccine Biotechnology to advance INO-4800 against the coronavirus in China.

Shares of Miragen Therapeutics, Inc. MGEN got a boost, shooting up 17% to $1.9834 after the company announced positive data from its ongoing Phase 1 trial of cobomarsen in adult t-cell leukemia/lymphoma patients with residual disease.

Black Diamond Therapeutics, Inc. BDTX shares were also up, gaining 89% to $35.57. Black Diamond Therapeutics priced its 10.5 million share IPO at $19 per share.

Equities Trading DOWN

Annovis Bio, Inc. ANVS shares tumbled 25% to $7.22. Annovis Bio shares climbed 59.8% on Wednesday after the company priced its initial public offering of 2,000,000 shares at $6.00 per share.

Shares of Sundial Growers Inc. SNDL were down 40% to $1.5550 after the company's 6-K showed that the CEO & COO is expected to resign.

Briggs & Stratton Corporation BGG was down, falling 23% to $3.8550 after the company reported downbeat Q2 results and announced plans to suspend dividend.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 2.2% to $52.14, while gold traded up 0.7% to $1,581.40.

Silver traded up 2.6% Thursday to $17.935, while copper fell 1.3% to $2.522.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 1.01%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.72%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 1.59% Meanwhile, the German DAX dropped 1.41%, and the French CAC 40 fell 1.4% while UK shares fell 1.36%.

Economics

The US economy expanded by an annualized 2.1% in the fourth quarter. Economists were also expecting a 2.1% growth in the quarter.

U.S. initial jobless claims fell 7,000 to 216,000 for the latest week.

Domestic supplies of natural gas dropped 201 billion cubic feet for the week ended January 24, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. However, analysts projected a fall of 207 billion cubic feet.

Data on money supply for the recent week will be released at 4:30 p.m. ET.