Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Nasdaq Surges 100 Points; Graham Shares Plunge

US stocks extended gains later in the session, with the Nasdaq index surging 100 points on Tuesday.

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.77% to 35,361.97 while the NASDAQ rose 0.72% to 14,115. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.46% to 4,504.67.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Materials shares rose by 1.4% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Century Aluminum Company CENX, up 12% and Alcoa Corporation AA up 10%.

In trading on Tuesday, energy shares tumbled by 2.3%.

Top Headline

Pfizer Inc. PFE posted better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter, while sales missed estimates.

Pfizer posted quarterly earnings of $1.08 per share, beating analysts' estimates of $0.87 per share. The company's quarterly sales came in at $23.80 billion, versus market expectations of $24.20 billion.

Pfizer said it sees FY22 adjusted earnings of $6.35 to $6.55 per share.

Equities Trading UP

American Rebel Holdings, Inc. AREB shares shot up 23% to $2.72 following uplisting to Nasdaq on Monday.

Shares of Haemonetics Corporation HAE got a boost, shooting 16% to $54.59 after reporting upbeat quarterly earnings.

Teradata Corporation TDC shares were also up, gaining 26% to $50.58 after the company issued Q1 EPS guidance above estimates and raised FY21 EPS guidance above estimates.

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Equities Trading DOWN

SelectQuote, Inc. SLQT shares tumbled 49% to $3.3320 after the company swung to a loss in the second quarter. Credit Suisse downgraded SelectQuote from Outperform to Neutral and lowered the price target from $14 to $4.

Shares of Pulse Biosciences, Inc. PLSE were down 35% to $7.11. Pulse Biosciences, said on Feb, 5 it received letter from the FDA in which the FDA stated it did not believe co. provided sufficient clinical evidence to support expanded indication for use to expand CellFX System's current labeling.

Graham Corporation GHM was down, falling 29% to $8.33 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 results and issued FY22 sales guidance below estimates.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 2% to $89.47, while gold traded up 0.4% to $1,828.80.

Silver traded up 0.7% Tuesday to $23.23 while copper fell 0.3% to $4.45.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 gained 0.01%, London's FTSE 100 fell 0.08%, while Spain's IBEX 35 Index rose 1.36%. The German DAX rose 0.24%, French CAC 40 rose 0.27% and Italy's FTSE MIB Index gained 0.31%.

Retail sales in Italy increased 0.9% from a month ago in December following a 0.4% decline in November. French trade deficit widened to EUR 11.32 billion in December from a revised EUR 9.76 billion in the prior month, while current account deficit widened to EUR 7.1 billion from EUR 3.4 billion. Industrial production in Spain rose 1.3% year-over-year in December.

Economics

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index dropped to an 11-month low of 97.1 in January from 98.9 in December. Exports from the US rose 1.5%, while imports rose 1.6%.

The US trade gap in both goods and services increased 27% to reach $859 billion in 2021.

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COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 78,370,770 cases with around 928,870 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 42,339,610 cases and 504,070 deaths, while Brazil reported over 26,605,130 COVID-19 cases with 632,720 deaths. In total, there were at least 398,682,560 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,771,030 deaths.