Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Tumbles Over 10%; Vaxart Shares Climb

Toward the end of trading Wednesday, the Dow traded down 10.24% to 19062.37 while the NASDAQ fell 8.48% to 6,713.04. The S&P also fell, dropping 9.27% to 2,294.76.

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

Utilities shares slipped by just 6% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included American States Water Company AWR, up 5%, and WEC Energy Group, Inc. WEC, up 4%.

In trading on Wednesday, energy shares dipped 15.8%.

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 294% to $9.23. 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 BioNTech SE BNTX got a boost, shooting 29% to $86.04. BioNTech shares jumped over 66% on Tuesday after the company confirmed it is working with Pfizer regarding co-development and distribution of a potential mRNA-based coronavirus vaccine, BNT162, to prevent COVID-19 infection. JP Morgan downgraded BioNTech from Overweight to Neutral.

Vaxart, Inc. VXRT shares were also up, gaining 15% to $2.2250 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 36% to $1.45. Various analysts downgraded shares of Michaels Companies.

Shares of National CineMedia, Inc. NCMI were down 38% to $1.6750 after Benchmark downgraded the stock from Buy to Hold.

Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation VAC was down, falling 37% to $38.25 after the company withdrew its FY20 guidance.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 22.3% to $20.95, while gold traded down 2.7% to $1,485.40.

Silver traded down 5.4% Wednesday to $11.815, while copper fell 8.1% to $2.127.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 3.92% the Spanish Ibex Index fell 3.44%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 1.27%. Meanwhile, the German DAX dropped 5.56%, and the French CAC 40 fell 5.94% while UK shares fell 4.05%.

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.