Mid-Day Market Update: Crude Oil Jumps Over 2%; Assembly Biosciences Shares Plunge

Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.42% to 35,461.47 while the NASDAQ rose 0.39% to 15,369.38. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.38% to 4,541.06.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 39,399,080 cases with around 642,090 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 32,857,930 cases and 439,520 deaths, while Brazil reported over 20,804,210 COVID-19 cases with 581,150 deaths. In total, there were at least 218,516,630 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,544,610 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.


Leading and Lagging Sectors


Energy shares gained 2.8% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Goodrich Petroleum Corporation GDP, up 16% and Laredo Petroleum, Inc. LPI up 10%.


In trading on Thursday, real estate shares fell by 0.4%.


Top Headline

Hormel Foods Corporation HRL reported weaker-than-expected earnings for its third quarter and lowered its full-year earnings forecast.

Hormel Foods posted quarterly adjusted earnings of $0.39 per share, missing market estimates of $0.40 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $2.86 billion, versus estimates of $2.65 billion.

Hormel Foods said it now expects FY21 earnings of $1.65 to $1.69 per share, down from previous forecast of $1.70 to $1.82 per share. The company, however, raised its sales forecast to $11 billion to $11.2 billion.

 


Equities Trading UP


Innate Pharma S.A. IPHA shares shot up 34% to $4.74. Innate Pharma said two oral presentations will be highlighted at the ESMO 2021 Virtual Congress.


Shares of Data Storage Corporation DTST got a boost, shooting 25% to $4.89 after the company reported a collaboration with Precisely.


Sphere 3D Corp. ANY shares were also up, gaining 36% to $9.02 as traders circulate a tweet from popular Twitter trader Will Meade saying 'Long $ANY this is the next $SPRT and they have a very good management team.'

Check out these big movers of the day


Equities Trading DOWN

Assembly Biosciences, Inc. ASMB shares tumbled 17% to $3.2196. Assembly Biosciences decided to discontinue the development of ABI-H2158 (2158) following the observation of elevated alanine transaminase (ALT) levels consistent with drug-induced hepatotoxicity (liver damage) in the Phase 2 trial. William Blair downgraded Assembly Biosciences from Outperform to Market Perform.

Shares of Meten EdtechX Education Group Ltd. METX were down 53% to $0.4345 after the company priced its 200 million share offering at $0.30 per share.

Phreesia, Inc. PHR was down, falling 12% to $61.17 after the company reported a wider loss for the second quarter.


Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 2.7% to $70.42, while gold traded down 0.1% to $1,814.90.


Silver traded down 1.2% Thursday to $23.94 while copper rose 0.5% to $4.2985.


Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.32%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.02% and the German DAX 30 gained 0.02%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.22%, French CAC 40 rose 0.1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.2%.

Producer prices in the Eurozone increased 2.3% in July. The number of people registered as unemployed in Spain fell 82,583 to 3.3 million in August.


Economics

US-based employers reported 15,723 job cuts in August.


The US trade deficit shrank to $70 billion in July. Exports from the US rose 1.3% to $212.9 billion in July, while imports slipped 0.2% to $282.9 billion.


US initial jobless claims dropped to 340,000 in the week ending August 28th, recording its lowest level since March 2020.


Unit labor costs rose an annualized 1.3% in the second quarter, while nonfarm labor productivity rose by an annualized 2.1%.


US factory orders rose 0.4% for July.


US natural-gas supplies climbed 20 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.


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

Check out the full economic calendar here

Date
ticker
name
Actual EPS
EPS Surprise
Actual Rev
Rev Surprise
Posted In: EarningsNewsPenny StocksEurozoneCommoditiesSmall CapGlobalIntraday UpdateMarketsMid-Day Market Update
We simplify the market for smarter investing

Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.

Join Now: Free!

Loading...