Mid-Day Market Update: PagerDuty Jumps On Upbeat Q3 Results; Cortexyme Shares Slide

Midway through trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.55% to 30,134.45 while the NASDAQ rose 0.45% to 12,432.92. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.64% to 3,690.14.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 14,147,730 cases with around 276,400 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 9,571,550 confirmed cases and 139,180 deaths, while Brazil reported over 6,487,080 COVID-19 cases with 175,270 deaths. In total, there were at least 65,315,460 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 1,508,900 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed 4.5% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Callon Petroleum Company CPE, up 27%, and Laredo Petroleum, Inc. LPI, up 15%.

In trading on Friday, utilities shares fell 0.5%.

Top Headline

Big Lots, Inc. BIG reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter on Friday.

Big Lots posted quarterly earnings of $0.76 per share, surpassing analysts’ estimates of $0.66 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $1.38 billion, also exceeding expectations of $1.35 billion. Its same-store sales climbed 17.8% year over year.

Equities Trading UP

Pioneer Power Solutions, Inc. PPSI shares shot up 59% to $5.66 after the company announced a conclusive settlement with Myers Power Products.

Shares of PagerDuty, Inc. PD got a boost, shooting 27% to $41.10 after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 results. The company also issued strong Q4 and FY21 sales guidance .

Sutro Biopharma, Inc. STRO shares were also up, gaining 30% to $22.12 after the company reported interim data on STRO-002 Phase 1 dose-escalation study for patients with ovarian cancer.

Equities Trading DOWN

Yext, Inc. YEXT shares tumbled 17% to $16.11 after the company issued weak Q4 sales guidance.

Shares of Cortexyme, Inc. CRTX were down 17% to $39.83 as the company announced that the independent Data Monitoring Committee conducted a pre-planned interim analysis and recommended Cortexyme continue the Phase 2/3 GAIN trial of its Alzheimer's candidate atuzaginstat as planned to the 1-year endpoint. Top-line results are expected as planned in December 2021.

Precision BioSciences, Inc. DTIL was down, falling 22% to $8.03 after reporting interim clinical results from its Phase 1/2a study of PBCAR0191.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.8% to $46.01, while gold traded down 0.3% to $1,835.40.

Silver traded up 0.2% Friday to $24.18 while copper rose 0.9% to $3.5215.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.45%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.71%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.66%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 gained 0.17%, French CAC 40 rose 0.49% and London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.92%.

The Eurozone construction PMI increased to 45.6 in November versus 44.9 in the earlier month. The UK construction PMI climbed to 54.7 in November versus a five-month low reading of 53.1 in the prior month, while German construction PMI rose to 45.6 from 45.2.

Economics

The US economy added 245,000 jobs in November, versus a revised 610,000 in the prior month. The unemployment rate declined to 6.7% in November from 6.9% in the previous month.

The US trade deficit increased to $63.1 billion in October versus a revised $62.1 billion in the prior month. Imports to the US increased by $5.0 billion to $245.1 billion in October.

US factory orders increased 1% in October versus a revised 1.1% increase in the earlier month.

The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week is scheduled for release at 1:00 p.m. ET.