Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Tumbles Over 200 Points; Mereo BioPharma Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded down 0.71% to 30,088.36 while the NASDAQ fell 0.40% to 12,714.00. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.77% to 3,693.85.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 17,213,880 cases with around 310,790 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 9,979,440 confirmed cases and 144,780 deaths, while Brazil reported over 7,110,430 COVID-19 cases with 184,820 deaths. In total, there were at least 75,075,060 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 1,664,760 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Materials shares slipped by just by 0.02% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included US Concrete Inc USCR, up 8%, and Amyris Inc AMRS, up 6%.

In trading on Friday, energy shares dipped 2%.

Top Headline

Darden Restaurants, Inc. DRI reported stronger-than-expected earnings for its second quarter.

Darden posted quarterly earnings of $0.74 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.71 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $1.66 billion, versus expectations of $1.68 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Exela Technologies, Inc. XELA shares shot up 27% to $0.4597. Exela Technologies secured a term loan of $145 million.

Shares of CURO Group Holdings Corp CURO got a boost, shooting 79% to $15.75. Katapult will go public through merger with FinServ Acquisition Corp. Katapult is 40% owned by CURO Group.

Mereo BioPharma Group plc MREO shares were also up, gaining 57% to $3.46. Mereo BioPharma and Ultragenyx announced a license and collaboration agreement for setrusumab, a monoclonal antibody in clinical development for osteogenesis imperfecta.

Equities Trading DOWN

Mesoblast Limited MESO shares tumbled 34% to $8.92. Mesoblast said Data Safety Monitoring Board that performed a third interim analysis of data from a study of remestemcel-L in ventilator-dependent patients with moderate to severe acute respiratory distress syndrome due to COVID-19 infection said the trial is not likely to meet the 30-day mortality reduction endpoint at the planned 300 patient enrolment.

Shares of Scopus BioPharma Inc. SCPS were down 40% to $20.27 after climbing 474% on Thursday. Scopus BioPharma’s filing showed registration for 500,000 share common stock offering. Scopus Biopharma priced its IPO at $5.5 per share.

Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. APDN was down, falling 16% to $5.24 after the company reported downbeat quarterly results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.5% to $49.06, while gold traded down 0.2% to $1,886.10.

Silver traded down 0.7% Friday to $26.00 while copper rose 0.9% to $3.6335.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.35%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.42%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 0.16%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 slipped 0.27%, French CAC 40 declined 0.39% and London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.33%.

German producer prices dropped 0.5% year-over-year in November following a 0.7% decline in the previous month, while retail sales in the UK dropped 3.8% in November.

Economics

The current account gap increased by 10.6% to $178.5 billion in the third quarter.

The index of leading economic indicators rose 0.6% for November.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs rose by 5 to 263 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.