Mid-Day Market Update: Dow Drops Over 100 Points; AMN Healthcare Services Shares Climb Following Strong Q4 Results

US stocks traded lower midway through trading, with the Dow Jones dropping more than 100 points on Friday.

The Dow traded down 0.39% to 34,179.43 while the NASDAQ fell 1.07% to 13,569.88. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.56% to 4,355.93.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Communication services shares climbed 0.7% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included System1, Inc. SST, up 9% and Iridium Communications Inc. IRDM up 5%.

In trading on Friday, energy shares fell by 0.5%.

Top Headline

Deere & Company DE reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter and raised profit guidance.

Deere posted quarterly earnings of $2.92 per share, beating market estimates of $2.26 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $9.57 billion, versus expectations of $8.19 billion.

Deere boosted its FY22 net income guidance from $6.5 billion-$7 billion to $6.7 billion-$7.1 billion.

 

Equities Trading UP

T2 Biosystems, Inc. TTOO shares shot up 11% to $0.4472 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 EPS and sales results.

Shares of Realogy Holdings Corp. RLGY got a boost, shooting 12% to $20.09 after the company announced upbeat Q4 results and reported a $300 million buyback.

AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. AMN shares were also up, gaining 13% to $105.04 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 EPS and sales results. The company also issued Q1 sales guidance above analyst estimates and added $300 million to its buyback.

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Equities Trading DOWN

Guardion Health Sciences, Inc. GHSI shares tumbled 45% to $0.2048. Guardion Health Sciences priced its 37 million share offering for gross proceeds $11.1 million.

Shares of Backblaze, Inc. BLZE were down 30% to $9.72 after the company reported a wider-than-expected Q4 loss.

Doma Holdings Inc. DOMA was down, falling 29% to $2.3850 after the company reported Q4 earnings results.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.7% to $91.16, while gold traded down 0.3% to $1,897.00.

Silver traded up 0.5% Friday to $24.005 while copper rose 0.5% to $4.5450.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.47%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.01%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.65%. The German DAX fell 1.18%, French CAC 40 dropped 0.08% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.22%.

The Euro Area current account surplus shrank to EUR 35.6 billion in December from EUR 42.3 billion in the year-ago month. Retail sales in the UK rose 1.9% from a month earlier in January

French consumer price inflation rate was confirmed at 2.9% year-over-year in January, while unemployment rate in the country dropped to 7.4% in the fourth quarter from a revised 8.0% in the prior period.

Economics

U.S. existing home increased 6.7% to an annual rate of 6.5 million in January.

The index of leading economic indicators fell 0.3% for January.

The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week will be released at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard is set to speak at 1:30 p.m. ET.

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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 79,915,730 cases with around 955,490 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 42,780,230 cases and 510,930 deaths, while Brazil reported over 27,941,470 COVID-19 cases with 641,990 deaths. In total, there were at least 420,751,330 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,883,740 deaths.