Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Higher; McDonald's Misses Q4 Views

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 1.63% to 30,796.16 while the NASDAQ rose 0.97% to 13,399.43. The S&P also rose, gaining 1.41% to 3,803.80.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 25,598,350 cases with around 429,200 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 10,701,190 confirmed cases and 153,840 deaths, while Brazil reported over 8,996,870 COVID-19 cases with 220,160 deaths. In total, there were at least 100,957,110 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 2,177,040 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares climbed 2.3% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Sundial Growers Inc SNDL, up 59%, and Surgery Partners Inc SGRY, up 18%.

In trading on Thursday, consumer discretionary shares rose by just 0.3%.

Top Headline

Mcdonald's Corp MCD reported weaker-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

McDonald's reported quarterly earnings of $1.70 per share, missing analysts’ expectations of $1.78 per share. The company posted revenue of $5.31 billion, versus estimates of $5.37 billion. McDonald's comparable store sales dropped 1.3% year over year.

Equities Trading UP

JanOne Inc. JAN shares shot up 147% to $23.47 amid continued momentum driven by retail investor interest in the stock.

Shares of Lianluo Smart Limited LLIT got a boost, shooting 89% to $11.79.

Koss Corporation KOSS shares were also up, gaining 52% to $88.42 amid continued momentum driven by retail investor interest in the stock. The company’s stock added 480% on Wednesday.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. AMC shares tumbled 38% to $12.29 as WallStreetBets briefly disappeared from Reddit and was taken down by Discord. Robinhood users also can no longer enter new AMC Entertainment positions..

Shares of Express, Inc. EXPR were down 37% to $6.02 after climbing 214% on Wednesday. The stock has been volatile following increased interest from retail investor groups.

BlackBerry Limited BB was down, falling 28% to $18.04 after jumping around 33% on Wednesday. BlackBerry recently announced it expanded its partnership with Baidu to power next generation autonomous driving technology.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.8% to $53.27, while gold traded up 0.6% to $1,855.30.

Silver traded up 4.7% Thursday to $26.58 while copper rose 0.9% to $3.5905.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.1%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.8% and the German DAX 30 gained 0.1%. Meanwhile, the French CAC 40 climbed 0.7%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.7% and Italy’s FTSE MIB climbed 0.9%.

Spain's unemployment rate declined to 16.13% in the fourth quarter from 16.26% in the prior period. Car production in UK tumbled 29.3% to 920,928 units in 2020.

Economics

The US economy expanded an annualized 4% in the fourth quarter, versus a record 33.4% expansion in the prior quarter.

The goods gap in the US shrank to $82.5 billion in December versus a revised $85.5 billion in the prior month.

US initial jobless claims dropped to 847,000 in the week ended January 23 versus a revised reading of 914,000 in the previous week.

Wholesale inventories rose 0.1% in December.

New home sales rose 1.6% to an annual rate of 842,000 in December.

The index of leading economic indicators rose 0.3% for December.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is scheduled for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Kansas City Fed manufacturing index for January will be released at 11:00 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 8-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury will auction 7-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.

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

Check out the full economic calendar here