Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Mixed; Paychex Profit Beats Views

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.75% to 20860.00 while the NASDAQ fell 0.93% to 7348.99. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.44% to 2436.60.

US reported a total of 55,200 coronavirus cases with around 800 deaths. Italy reported a total of at least 69,100 confirmed cases and 6,800 deaths, while Spain confirmed a total of over 42,000 coronavirus cases. Mainland China reported 47 new cases on Tuesday. In total, there are at least 428,400 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 19,100 deaths.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Industrial shares climbed 1% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Nesco Holdings, Inc. NSCO, up 18%, and Spirit Airlines, Inc. SAVE, up 16%.

In trading on Wednesday, communication services shares fell 2.5%.

Top Headline

Paychex, Inc. PAYX reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter, while sales missed views.

Paychex reported quarterly earnings of $0.97 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.96 per share. Revenue came in at $1.12 billion, slightly missing the consensus expectations of $1.14 billion.

 

Equities Trading UP

Astrotech Corporation ASTC shares shot up 593% to $7.69 after the company announced it is developing its BreathTest 1000 screening instrument for lung diseases including Coronavirus and Pneumonia.

Shares of T2 Biosystems, Inc. TTOO got a boost, shooting 140% to $0.9342 after the company announced a worldwide licensing agreement to support the development of a rapid COVID-19 test developed by Hackensack Meridian Health.

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust PMT shares were also up, gaining 42% to $8.15.


Equities Trading DOWN

IMAC Holdings, Inc. IMAC shares tumbled 47% to $2.62 after surging more than 1000% on Tuesday.

Shares of Immutep Limited IMMP were down 68% to $0.59 after the company announced data from the Phase 2b AIPAC study that evaluated its lead product candidate eftilagimod alpha in combination with paclitaxel, a taxane standard-of-care chemotherapy, in HER2-negative/HR+ metastatic breast cancer, which showed 63% of patients treated with the combo were progression-free at the 6-month landmark.

Exantas Capital Corp. XAN was down, falling 40% to $1.68. Exantas Capital issued an update on status of financing arrangements as of March 25, 2020.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 2.2% to $23.48, while gold traded down 1.2% to $1,641.40.

Silver traded up 1.1% Wednesday to $14.41, while copper fell 0.8% to $2.1625.

Euro zone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.3% the Spanish Ibex Index slipped 0.1%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.1%. Meanwhile, the German DAX dropped 1.3%, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.4% while UK shares rose 1.1%.


Economics

US durable goods orders rose 1.2% for February, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.8% decline.

The FHFA house price index rose 0.3% for January, versus a revised 0.7% gain in December.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on petroleum inventories in the U.S. is scheduled for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The business expectations and uncertainty indexes for March will be released at 11:00 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 5-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.

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Posted In: EarningsNewsEurozoneCommoditiesGlobalIntraday UpdateMarketsMid-Morning Market Update
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