Mid-Day Market Update: Dow Drops Over 100 Points; Rocket Pharmaceuticals Shares Jump

Midway through trading Wednesday, the Dow traded down 0.37% to 30,061.07 while the NASDAQ fell 0.28% to 12,546.99. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.28% to 3,691.99.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 15,172,600 cases with around 286,330 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 9,735,850 confirmed cases and 141,360 deaths, while Brazil reported over 6,674,990 COVID-19 cases with 178,150 deaths. In total, there were at least 68,321,800 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 1,559,700 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer discretionary shares climbed 0.3% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Liquidity Services, Inc. LQDT, up 15%, and Stitch Fix, Inc. SFIX, up 14%.

In trading on Wednesday, real estate shares fell 1.3%.

Top Headline

Campbell Soup Company CPB reported stronger-than-expected earnings for its first quarter, but issued weak guidance for the second quarter.

Campbell Soup reported quarterly earnings of $1.02 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.91 per share. The company’s sales came in at $2.34 billion, versus expectations of $2.32 billion. The company also raised its quarterly dividend from $0.35 to $0.37 per share.

Campbell Soup said it expects Q2 adjusted earnings of $0.81 to $0.83 per share on sales growth of 5% to 7% year over year.

Equities Trading UP

Greenwich LifeSciences, Inc. GLSI shares shot up 227% to $16.98 after the company announced a poster presentation of five-year data for its GP2 Phase IIb clinical trial. The company reported data showing 0% breast cancer recurrences following surgery and Herceptin treatment over median 5 years of follow-up.

Shares of Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Inc. RCKT got a boost, shooting 75% to $56.00 after the company announced preliminary data from its open-label, Phase 1 clinical trial of its AAV-based gene therapy candidate RP-A501 for the treatment of Danon Disease, showing the gene therapy was generally well tolerated and provided early evidence of clinical benefit. The company also announced a $175 million public offering of common stock.

Intec Pharma Ltd NTEC shares were also up, gaining 60% to $5.54 after the company announced a cannabinoid research collaboration with GW Pharma.

Equities Trading DOWN

Pluristem Therapeutics Inc. PSTI shares tumbled 37% to $7.22 after the company said following interim review of dataset from the pivotal Phase 3 study of PLX-PAD in critical limb ischemia, the independent Data Monitoring Committee said the study is unlikely to meet the primary endpoint by the time of the final analysis.

Shares of Sino-Global Shipping America, Ltd.. SINO were down 38% to $2.39 after the company reported pricing of $4.8 million registered direct offering priced at-the-market.

Atossa Therapeutics, Inc. ATOS was down, falling 39% to $0.8690 after the company reported pricing of $20.0 million underwritten public offering.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1% to $45.13, while gold traded down 1.3% to $1,850.20.

Silver traded down 2% Wednesday to $24.235 while copper rose 0.2% to $3.5075.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.45%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.2%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.03%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 gained 0.68%, French CAC 40 fell 0.11% and London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.28%.

The eurozone GDP rose 12.5% quarter-over-quarter during the third quarter, but declined 4.3% year-over-year. Spain's industrial production declined 1.6% year-over-year in October. German trade balance surplus increased to €18.2 billion in October.

Economics

The number of job openings rose by 158,000 to 6.652 million in October.

US wholesale inventories increased 1.1% for October.

US crude oil supplies gained 15.19 million barrel last week, the Energy Information Administration reported.

The Treasury will auction 10-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.