Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Surges 500 Points; CleanSpark Shares Plummet

Toward the end of trading Wednesday, the Dow traded up 1.80% to 28,272.86 while the NASDAQ rose 1.75% to 11,350.18. The S&P also rose, gaining 1.62% to 3,415.28.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 7,501,840 cases with around 210,900 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 6,757,130 confirmed cases and 104,550 deaths, while Brazil reported over 4,969,140 COVID-19 cases with 147,490 deaths. In total, there were at least 35,849,420 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 1,050,500 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Materials shares jumped 2.3% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Olympic Steel, Inc. ZEUS, up 9%, and United States Steel Corporation X, up 8%.

In trading on Wednesday, utilities shares rose by just 0.4%.

Top Headline

RPM International Inc. RPM reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter.

RPM reported quarterly earnings of $1.44 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $1.19 per share. The company posted sales of $1.61 billion, surpassing expectations of $1.49 billion.

Equities Trading UP

The Peck Company Holdings, Inc. PECK shares shot up 52% to $11.05 in sympathy with Sunworks after the company announced it won $10 million in project wins in Q3. The company also signed a $7.256 million 5.3MW solar project in Rhode Island.

Shares of RAVE Restaurant Group, Inc. RAVE got a boost, shooting 90% to $0.9784. The company announced on Tuesday it has hired Darren Webb as director of development for RAVE and Dion Firooznia as franchise business consultant for Pizza Inn.

Sunworks, Inc. SUNW shares were also up, gaining 40% to $3.9050 after the company announced it has signed $10 million in new commercial and agriculture projects in the third quarter.

Equities Trading DOWN

Bandwidth Inc. BAND shares tumbled 8% to $171.02 after Morgan Stanley downgraded the company's stock from Equal-Weight to Underweight and announced a $140 price target.

Shares of Aytu BioScience, Inc. AYTU were down 13% to $1.1511 following Q4 results. Aytu BioScience posted a quarterly loss of $0.03 per share.

CleanSpark, Inc. CLSK was down, falling 11% to $11.08 after the company reported a common stock offering of 4.44 million shares at $9 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.8% to $39.92, while gold traded down 1% to $1,890.30.

Silver traded down 0.1% Wednesday to $23.890 while copper rose 2.2% to $3.0300.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly lower today after recording gains in the prior session. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 slipped 0.12%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.38%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.03%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 gained 0.17%, French CAC 40 slipped 0.27% and London’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.06%.

Spanish industrial production fell 5.7% year-over-year in August versus a revised 6.2% drop in the prior month. Industrial production in Germany also declined 0.2% in August.

Economics

U.S. crude inventories gained 500,000 barrels for the week ended October 2, the Energy Information Administration reported. However, analysts were expecting a decline of 2 million barrels. Gasoline supply dropped 1.4 million barrels last week, while distillate stockpiles slipped 1 million barrels.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams will speak at 3:00 p.m. ET.

Data on consumer credit for August will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.

Chicago Fed President Charles Evans is set to speak at 4:30 p.m. ET.