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

Following the market opening Monday, the Dow traded down 0.47% to 26,546.18 while the NASDAQ rose 0.72% to 10,578.79. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.03% to 3,225.84.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 3,773,260 cases with around 140,530 deaths. Brazil confirmed a total of over 2,098,380 COVID-19 cases with 79,480 deaths, while India reported a total of at least 1,118,200 confirmed cases and 27,490 deaths. In total, there were at least 14,508,890 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 606,200 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer discretionary shares rose 0.8% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Molecular Data Inc. MKD, up 12%, and Studio City International Holdings Limited MSC, up 10%.

In trading on Monday, energy shares fell 1.4%.

Top Headline

Halliburton Company HAL reported upbeat earnings for its second quarter, while sales missed estimates.

Halliburton posted quarterly earnings of $0.05 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of a loss of $0.11 per share. The company reported sales of $3.20 billion, missing expectations of $3.31 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Immuron Limited IMRN shares shot up 126% to $14.24 after guidance from the FDA cleared the way for two clinical studies in 2021 and will help the company with development of an investigational new drug application.

Shares of DPW Holdings, Inc. DPW got a boost, shooting 99% to $4.09 after the company announced it has released a product line of electric vehicle charges.

iBio, Inc. IBIO shares were also up, gaining 38% to $5.40 after the company’s stock climbed almost 100% last week.

Equities Trading DOWN

Genetic Technologies Limited GENE shares tumbled 27% to $4.12. On Thursday, Genetic Technologies priced a 1.025 million ADS offering at $5 per ADS.

Shares of Nikola Corporation NKLA were down 16% to $40.81 after the company disclosed a common stock offering.

Boxlight Corporation BOXL was down, falling 17% to $3.02 after declining around 13% on Friday. Boxlight’s website discussed collaboration with Samsung last week.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 0.9% to $40.23, while gold traded up 0.1% to $1,811.60.

Silver traded up 0.4% Monday to $19.85, while copper rose 0.1% to $2.9045.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.1%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.1%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index slipped 0.1%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 gained 0.4%, French CAC 40 fell 0.2% and UK shares fell 0.7%.

Economics

On the economics calendar Monday, there is no important data due out.