Mid-Day Market Update: Gold Rises 1%; Verrica Pharmaceuticals Shares Slide

Midway through trading Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.44% to 34,119.86 while the NASDAQ rose 0.66% to 14,810.89. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.43% to 4,376.48.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 42,289,820 cases with around 676,090 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 33,504,530 cases and 445,380 deaths, while Brazil reported over 21,247,660 COVID-19 cases with 590,950 deaths. In total, there were at least 229,132,900 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,701,330 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.


Leading and Lagging Sectors


Real estate shares rose 1% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. AHT, up 4% and Xinyuan Real Estate Co., Ltd. XIN up 4%.


In trading on Tuesday, industrials shares fell 0.5%.


Top Headline

AutoZone, Inc. AZO reported better-than-expected results for its fourth quarter on Tuesday.

AutoZone reported quarterly earnings of $35.72 per share, beating analysts’ expectations of $29.87 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at 4.90 billion, exceeding estimates of $4.56 billion.


Equities Trading UP


Helbiz, Inc. HLBZ shares shot up 156% to $36.74. Helbiz Media, the media arm of Helbiz announced a deal with Amazon Italy, a unit of Amazon.com.


Shares of Viridian Therapeutics, Inc. VRDN got a boost, shooting 18% to $12.63 after the company priced an underwritten public offering with approximately $85.0 million gross proceeds. Viridian will offer 6.18 million shares at $11.00 per share, and 23,126 shares of series B preferred stock at a public offering price of $733.37 per share, convertible into approximately 1.5 million shares..


Inotiv, Inc. NOTV shares were also up, gaining 27% to $46.63 after the company announced plans to purchase Envigo.

Check out these big movers of the day


Equities Trading DOWN

Edesa Biotech, Inc. EDSA shares tumbled 18% to $9.81 on profit-taking after the stock rallied over 100% yesterday.

Shares of Verrica Pharmaceuticals Inc. VRCA were down 12% to $10.56 after the company announced the FDA issued a Complete Response Letter regarding its New Drug Application for VP-102 for the treatment of molluscum contagiosum.

RBC Bearings Incorporated ROLL was down, falling 16% to $181.50 after the company announced a common stock offering of 3 million shares and $400 million in aggregate liquidation preference of series A mandatory convertible preferred stock.


Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 0.2% to $70.45, while gold traded up 1% to $1,782.00.


Silver traded up 2.2% Tuesday to $22.70 while copper fell 1.3% to $4.0630.


Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.89%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.07% and the German DAX 30 gained 1.2%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.96%, French CAC 40 jumped 1.3% and Italy’s FTSE MIB climbed 1.04%.

Public sector net borrowing in the UK fell to GBP 20.5 billion in August, GBP 5.5 billion less than a year ago.


Economics

The Federal Open Market Committee will begin its two-day policy meeting today.


Housing starts rose 3.9% to an annual rate of 1.615 million units in August, while building permits increased 6.0% to 1.728 million.


The current account gap increased to $190 billion in the second quarter from a revised $89 billion gap in the previous period.

Check out the full economic calendar here

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs
Comments
Loading...
Date
ticker
name
Actual EPS
EPS Surprise
Actual Rev
Rev Surprise
Posted In: EarningsNewsPenny StocksEurozoneCommoditiesSmall CapGlobalIntraday UpdateMarketsMid-Day Market Update
Benzinga simplifies 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!