Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Mostly Higher; Dicks Sporting Tops Q2 Estimates

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded down 0.15% to 28205.09 while the NASDAQ rose 0.53% to 11527.36. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.18% to 3,449.65.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 5,779,390 cases with around 178,530 deaths. Brazil confirmed a total of over 3,669,990 COVID-19 cases with 116,580 deaths, while India reported a total of at least 3,234,470 confirmed cases and 59,440 deaths. In total, there were at least 23,925,640 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 820,190 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares gained 1.2% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Anaplan Inc PLAN, up 28%, and salesforce.com, inc. CRM, up 27%.

In trading on Wednesday, health care shares fell by 0.9%.

Top Headline

Dicks Sporting Goods Inc DKS reported better-than-expected results for its second quarter.

Dicks Sporting Goods reported quarterly earnings of $3.21 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $1.26 per share. The company reported sales of $2.71 billion, also surpassing expectations of $2.45 billion. The company’s e-commerce sales climbed 194% during the quarter.

Equities Trading UP

Anaplan, Inc. PLAN shares shot up 29% to $61.50 after the company reported better-than-expected Q2 results and issued strong Q3 sales guidance.

Shares of Fluidigm Corporation FLDM got a boost, shooting 26% to $11.06 after the company announced it has received emergency use authorization from the FDA for the Advanta Dx SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR Assay, an extraction-free saliva-based test to detect nucleic acid from COVID-19.

salesforce.com, inc. CRM shares were also up, gaining 24% to $268.73 after the company reported better-than-expected Q2 results and also issued strong FY21 guidance.

Equities Trading DOWN

Garrett Motion Inc. GTX shares tumbled 42% to $4.0150. Garrett Motion said it is exploring alternatives for balance sheet restructuring.

Shares of Pioneer Power Solutions, Inc. PPSI were down 25% to $1.7521 after jumping around 68% on Tuesday. Mazurek Nathan filed a Form 4 with the SEC on Tuesday, August 25. The insider bought 1,000 shares at an average price of $1.40.

XpresSpa Group, Inc. XSPA was down, falling 19% to $2.685 after the company announced a $35.5 million registered direct offering priced at-the-market under Nasdaq rules.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 0.5% to $43.13, while gold traded down 0.1% to $1,922.70.

Silver traded up 0.7% Wednesday to $26.465, while copper rose 0.8% to $2.958.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.1%, the Spanish Ibex Index gained 0.4%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.1%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 gained 0.6%, French CAC 40 rose 0.3% and UK shares fell 0.2%.

Economics

U.S. durable goods orders increased 11.2% for July, versus analysts’ expectations for a 4.3% rise.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on petroleum inventories in the U.S. will be released at 10:30 a.m. ET.

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

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

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Mary Daly will speak at 3:25 p.m. ET.