Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Dips 12%; Cricut Shares Plunge

U.S. stocks traded higher toward the end of trading, with the Nasdaq surging 400 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded up 2.09% to 33,314.85 while the NASDAQ rose 3.45% to 13,236.86. The S&P also rose, gaining, 2.58% to 4,278.35.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Financials shares climbed by 4.1% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Bright Health Group, Inc. BHG, up 22% and Silvergate Capital Corporation SI up 18%.

In trading on Wednesday, energy shares fell by 1.2%.

Top Headline

Campbell Soup Company CPB reported in-line earnings for its second quarter, while sales missed expectations.

Campbell Soup posted quarterly earnings of $0.69 per share, in-line with analysts’ estimates of $0.69 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $2.21 billion, versus expectations of $2.24 billion.

Campbell said it sees FY22 adjusted EPS of $2.75-$2.85, versus analysts’ estimates of $2.79

Equities Trading UP

Bumble Inc. BMBL shares shot up 41% to $23.48 after the company reported Q4 results, which showed a 29% increase in Bumble App paying users. Bumble App revenue increased 42.2% year over year.

Shares of AST SpaceMobile, Inc. ASTS got a boost, shooting 36% to $9.20 after the company announced it has signed a multi-launch agreement with SpaceX for planned direct-to-cell phone connectivity.

Direct Digital Holdings, Inc. DRCT shares were also up, gaining 87% to $2.2399. Benchmark initiated coverage on Direct Digital with a Buy rating and announced a price target of $8.

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Equities Trading DOWN

Natera, Inc. NTRA shares tumbled 50% to $27.62 after Hindenburg Research issued a short report on the stock.

Shares of Cricut, Inc. CRCT were down 24% to $10.54 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 sales results.

Invacare Corporation IVC was down, falling 26% to $1.73 following Q4 results.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 12.1% to $108.80, while gold traded down 2.1% to $2,000.20.

Silver traded down 2.5% Wednesday to $26.235 while copper fell 2.8% to $4.5785.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 4.68%, London’s FTSE 100 gained 3.25%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index jumped 4.88%. The German DAX jumped 7.92%, French CAC 40 climbed 7.13% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index surged 6.94%.

Industrial production in Italy fell 3.4% from a month ago in January, while payroll employment in the France’s private sector increased by 0.6% to 20.06 million in the fourth quarter.

Economics

The number of job openings in the fell to 11.263 million in January versus a revised 11.448 million in the prior month.

US crude-oil inventories dropped 1.9 million barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

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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 81,012,950 cases with around 987,610 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 42,975,880 cases and 515,380 deaths, while Brazil reported over 29,144,960 COVID-19 cases with 652,930 deaths. In total, there were at least 450,186,760 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,037,860 deaths.