Mid-Day Market Update: Crude Oil Down 15%; Biomerica Shares Spike Higher

Midway through trading Wednesday, the Dow traded down 5.99% to 19,965.62 while the NASDAQ fell 4.59% to 6,997.75. The S&P also fell, dropping 5.35% to 2,394.00.

Total cases in the US exceeded 6,400 with around 114 deaths. Italy reported a total of at least 31,500 confirmed cases and 2,500 deaths, while Iran confirmed a total of over 16,000 coronavirus cases. Mainland China reported 13 additional confirmed cases and 11 new deaths. In total, there are at least 201,000 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 8,000 deaths.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer staples shares slipped by just 2.8% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included SpartanNash Company SPTN, up 19%, and United Natural Foods, Inc. UNFI, up 23%.

In trading on Wednesday, energy shares dipped 10.4%.

Top Headline

General Mills, Inc. GIS reported in-line earnings for its third quarter, while sales missed estimates.

General Mills posted Q3 adjusted earnings of $0.77 per share, in-line versus analysts’ estimates. The company’s sales came in at $4.18 billion, missing analysts’ estimates of $4.23 billion.

General Mills said it expects FY20 adjusted EPS to rise 6%-8% and sales growth of 1%-2%.

Equities Trading UP

Biomerica, Inc. BMRA shares shot up 303% to $9.42. Biomerica said it has commenced shipping initial samples of its COVID-19 IgG/IgM Rapid Test – a finger prick test with results in 10 minutes – to countries outside of the U.S.

Shares of IMV Inc. IMV got a boost, shooting 24% to $2.5099. Imv said it's advancing the clinical development of a DPX-based vaccine candidate against COVID-19. It intends to develop its vaccine candidate DPX-COVID-19 in collaboration with lead investigators for the phase 1 clinical study

Vaxart, Inc. VXRT shares were also up, gaining 28% to $2.47 after the company entered into an agreement with Emergent Biosolutions for the development and manufacturing of oral coronavirus vaccine candidate.

Equities Trading DOWN

The Michaels Companies, Inc. MIK shares tumbled 33% to $1.51. Various analysts downgraded shares of Michaels Companies.

Shares of National CineMedia, Inc. NCMI were down 35% to $1.7650 after Benchmark downgraded the stock from Buy to Hold.

Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation VAC was down, falling 40% to $36.37 after the company withdrew its FY20 guidance.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 15.1% to $22.89, while gold traded down 2% to $1,494.80.

Silver traded down 3.2% Wednesday to $12.095, while copper fell 6.5% to $2.164.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 3.9% the Spanish Ibex Index fell 3.9%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 1.1%. Meanwhile, the German DAX dropped 4.6%, and the French CAC 40 fell 5.9% while UK shares fell 4.03%.

Economics

U.S. housing starts slipped 1.5% to an annualized rate of 1.599 million in February. Building permits dipped 5.5% to an annual rate of 1.464 million in February.

U.S. crude supplies climbed 2 million barrels for the week ended March 13, the Energy Information Administration reported. However, analysts expected a gain of 2.6 million barrels. Gasoline supplies fell 6.2 million barrels, while distillate supplies dropped 2.9 million barrels.