Mid-Afternoon Market Update: NASDAQ Rises 70 Points; ShiftPixy Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.18% to 24552.63 while the NASDAQ rose 0.76% to 9304.91. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.21% to 2960.01.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths around the world, reporting a total of 1,508,950 cases with around 90,360 deaths. Brazil confirmed a total of over 255,360 COVID-19 cases with 16,850 deaths, while Russia reported a total of at least 299,940 confirmed cases and 2,830 deaths. In total, there were at least 4,823,470 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 318,850 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer discretionary shares climbed by 1.2% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Overstock.com, Inc. OSTK, up 19%, and Puxin Limited NEW, up 18%.

In trading on Tuesday, energy shares fell 1.4%.

Top Headline

Walmart Inc WMT reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter.

Walmart reported first-quarter earnings of $1.18 cents per share, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $1.17 cents. The company reported quarterly sales of $134.60 billion, which exceeded the analyst consensus estimate of $130.31 billion.

Walmart's US comparable sales rose 10.0% during the quarter, while ecommerce sales surged 74%.

Equities Trading UP

ShiftPixy, Inc PIXY shares shot up 73% to $11.05 after the company announced a deal with Diamondback DTNM, an operator of 11 Del Taco Restaurants Inc. As part of the agreement, 11 Del Taco restaurants in the Albuquerque, New Mexico region will start using ShiftPixy's platform. The goal is for the Del Taco franchisee to leverage ShiftPixy's end-to-end platform for human capital management and native delivery.

Shares of Kirkland's, Inc. KIRK got a boost, shooting 29% to $1.09 after the company said e-commerce demand was up 96% in the period since stores closed on March 19th.

Arbutus Biopharma Corporation ABUS shares were also up, gaining 25% to $2.3301 after the company highlighted single-dose week 12 data in chronic Hep B subjects with 60mg AB-729 showed "significant, continuous reduction in HBsAg."

Equities Trading DOWN

Gamida Cell Ltd. GMDA shares tumbled 24% to $4.5050 after the company announced the launch of a proposed stock offering of its common stock.

Shares of Bellerophon Therapeutics, Inc. BLPH were down 19% to $13.11 after the company announced a common stock offering of 3.077 million shares at $13 per share.

HEXO Corp. HEXO was down, falling 29% to $0.5332 after the company announced an offering of 55.6 million units at C$0.90 per unit.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 0.4% to $31.95, while gold traded up 0.7% to $1,746.00.

Silver traded up 2.5% Tuesday to $17.905, while copper rose 0.6% to $2.4175.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly lower today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 slipped 0.61%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 2.51%, while Italy's FTSE MIB Index fell 2.11%. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 0.15%, and the French CAC 40 slipped 0.89% while UK shares fell 0.77%.

Economics

U.S. housing starts dipped 30.2% to an annualized rate of 0.891 million in April, while building permits declined 20.8% to an annual rate of 1.074 million.