Mid-Day Market Update: Dow Jumps Over 500 Points; Immutep Shares Plummet

Midway through trading Wednesday, the Dow traded up 2.75% to 21,273.33 while the NASDAQ fell 0.07% to 7,412.91. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.86% to 2,468.46.

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

Real estate shares climbed 4% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Seritage Growth Properties SRG, up 31%, and EPR Properties EPR, up 23%.

In trading on Wednesday, communication services shares fell 1.8%.

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 492% to $6.57 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 108% to $0.8101 after the company announced a worldwide licensing agreement to support the development of a rapid COVID-19 test developed by Hackensack Meridian Health.

Cytosorbents Corporation CTSO shares were also up, gaining 32% to $6.08 after the company said CytoSorb has been used in more than 70 coronavirus patients to 'help treat cytokine storm and life-threatening complications such as acute respiratory distress syndrome.'

Equities Trading DOWN

Titan Medical Inc. TMDI shares tumbled 27% to $0.154 after the company reported a $1.2 million registered direct offering.

Shares of Immutep Limited IMMP were down 63% to $0.69 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.

ThermoGenesis Holdings, Inc. THMO was down, falling 36% to $3.1820. ThermoGenesis reported pricing of 1 million share common stock offering at $3.50 per share.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 0.8% to $23.81, while gold traded down 1.4% to $1,637.40.

Silver traded up 2.3% Wednesday to $14.59, while copper rose 0.7% to $2.1945.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 1.23% the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.07%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.12%. Meanwhile, the German DAX dropped 0.25%, and the French CAC 40 rose 2.23% while UK shares rose 2.37%.

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.

U.S. crude supplies climbed 1.6 million barrels for the week ended March 20, the Energy Information Administration reported. However, analysts were projecting a gain of 2.5 million barrels. Gasoline supplies fell 1.5 million barrels, while distillate supplies slipped 700,000 barrels last week.