Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Rise; Walgreens Earnings Beat Expectations

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.35% to 21,017.80 while the NASDAQ rose 0.48% to 7,395.65. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.66% to 2,486.81.

The U.S. is now the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic with the highest number of cases around the world. U.S. reported a total of 216,700 coronavirus cases with around 5,100 deaths. Italy reported a total of at least 110,500 confirmed cases and 13,100 deaths, while Spain confirmed a total of over 104,100 coronavirus cases. In total, there are at least 941,900 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 48,200 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed 4.5% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included WPX Energy, Inc. WPX, up 15%, and Parsley Energy, Inc. PE, up 14%.

In trading on Thursday, health care shares dipped 0.8%.

Top Headline

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc WBA reported upbeat results for its second quarter.

Walgreens reported quarterly earnings of $1.52 per share, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $1.46 per share. The company reported quarterly sales of $35.8 billion, which exceeded the analyst consensus estimate of $35.27 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Penn Virginia Corporation PVAC shares shot up 26% to $2.8386 after dropping 27% on Wednesday.

Shares of Astrotech Corporation ASTC got a boost, shooting 27% to $2.9064 after dropping 12% on Wednesday.

Apogee Enterprises, Inc. APOG shares were also up, gaining 23% to $21.60 after reporting better-than-expected Q4 results.

Equities Trading DOWN

Luckin Coffee Inc. LK shares tumbled 70% to $7.88 after the company withdrew previous financial statements and said its COO has been involved in fabricating transactions over the past year.

Shares of Golar LNG Partners LP GMLP were down 46% to $1.745 after the company announced a reduction in its quarterly common unit distribution and issued an operational update.

Safe-T Group Ltd SFET was down, falling 23% to $1.69. Safe-T priced its 450,000 ADS offering at $1.60 per ADS.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 9.5% to $22.23, while gold traded up 1% to $1,606.60.

Silver traded up 2.5% Thursday to $14.33, while copper rose 0.6% to $2.1885.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.6% the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.1%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 1.1%. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 0.4%, and the French CAC 40 rose 1% while UK shares rose 0.6%.

Economics

U.S. trade deficit shrank 12.2% to $39.9 billion in February, versus revised $45.5 billion in January. Exports declined 0.4% to $207.5 billion, while imports slipped 2.5% to $247.5 billion.

Initial jobless claims surged by 6.65 million in the latest week, versus revised 3.34 million in the previous week.

U.S. factory orders were unchanged for February, versus a 0.5% drop in January.

The Energy Information Administration's weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is scheduled for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 8-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari is set to speak at 1:00 p.m. ET.

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