Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Nasdaq Tumbles 575 Points; PagerDuty Shares Tumble On Weak Outlook

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 2.79% to 28,287.97 while the NASDAQ fell 4.77% to 11,481.59. The S&P also fell, dropping 3.44% to 3,457.82.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 6,115,030 cases with around 185,750 deaths. Brazil confirmed a total of over 3,997,860 COVID-19 cases with 123,780 deaths, while India reported a total of at least 3,853,400 confirmed cases and 67,370 deaths. In total, there were at least 26,056,770 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 863,570 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares slipped by just 0.3% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Whiting Petroleum Corporation WLL, up 10%, and Callon Petroleum Company CPE, up 7%.

In trading on Thursday, information technology shares fell by 5.7%.

Top Headline

Campbell Soup Company CPB reported better-than-expected results for its fourth quarter.

Campbell reported quarterly earnings of $0.63 per share, surpassing analysts’ estimates of $0.60 per share. The company reported sales of $2.11 billion versus expectations of $2.08 billion.

For the fiscal first quarter, Campbell Soup projects adjusted earnings of $0.88 to $0.92 per share and sales to increase 5% to 7%.

 

Equities Trading UP

Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp. KCAC shares shot up 67% to $16.74. Quantumscape will list On NYSE through merger with Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp.

Shares of Shiloh Industries, Inc. SHLO got a boost, shooting 132% to $0.6859 after the company received court approval of "First Day" motions to support business operations.

General Moly, Inc. GMO shares were also up, gaining 16% to $0.1348 after the company announced a letter of intent to sell the liberty project to Pathfinder Minerals for $1 million in cash.

 

Equities Trading DOWN

Akebia Therapeutics, Inc. AKBA shares tumbled 73% to $2.70 after the company announced top-line results from its PRO2TECT Global Phase 3 program on vadadustat, which did not meet its primary safety MACE endpoint.

Shares of Zuora, Inc. ZUO were down 33% to $10.90. Zuora reported upbeat Q2 results, but issued weak sales forecast for the current quarter.

PagerDuty, Inc. PD was down, falling 26% to $25.99 after the company issued weak earnings guidance.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 0.3% to $41.39, while gold traded down 0.6% to $1,934.10.

Silver traded down 2.3% Thursday to $26.775, while copper fell 1.5% to $2.9745.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.4%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.13%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 1.54%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 dropped 1.4%, French CAC 40 slipped 0.44% and London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.52%.

The IHS Markit eurozone services PMI slipped to 50.5 in August from July’s reading of 54.7.

Economics

The US trade deficit increased to $63.6 billion in July versus a revised $53.5 billion deficit in June. Exports rose 8.2%, while imports climbed 10.9% in July.

U.S. initial jobless claims declined to 881,000 in the week ended August 29, versus 1.006 million in the previous week.

Labor productivity increased by an annualized 10.1% in the second quarter, while unit labor costs rose by 9.0%.

The IHS Markit services PMI rose to 55.0 in August versus a preliminary estimate of 54.8.

The ISM non-manufacturing PMI dropped to 56.9 in August versus 58.1 in the prior month.

Domestic supplies of natural gas gained 35 billion cubic feet for the week ended Aug. 28, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported.

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