Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Mixed; US Pending Home Sales Index Drop 4.1%

U.S. stocks traded opened on a mixed note this morning, with the Dow Jones gaining around 80 points on Friday.

Following the market opening, the Dow traded up 0.25% to 34,795.46 while the NASDAQ fell 0.10% to 14,177.27. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.19% to 4,528.63.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Financials shares jumped by 0.9% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included X Financial XYF, up 4% and Medallion Financial Corp. MFIN up 3%.

In trading on Friday, consumer discretionary shares fell 0.3%.

Top Headline

The pending home sales index fell 4.1% for February, versus analysts’ expectations for a 1% growth.

Equities Trading UP

SciSparc Ltd. SPRC shares shot up 19% to $5.27 following an afternoon report Thursday US House Rules Committee has scheduled a Monday-afternoon meeting to prep federal marijuana legalization bill for floor action.

Shares of Forge Global Holdings, Inc. FRGE got a boost, shooting 64% to $20.43.

Joby Aviation, Inc. JOBY shares were also up, gaining 23% to $6.53 following better-than-expected Q4 results.

Equities Trading DOWN

Icosavax, Inc. ICVX shares tumbled 47% to $6.54 after the company reported the results from its Phase 1/2 trial for IVX-441 against SARS-CoV-2 showed the level of response was lower than expected and inconsistent with known data on the company's platform and VLP technology.

Shares of The Honest Company, Inc. HNST were down 29% to $4.26 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 EPS and sales results.

Orion Office REIT Inc. ONL was down, falling 16% to $15.10 after the company reported Q4 earnings results.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.1% to $111.10, while gold traded down 0.7% to $1,949.20.

Silver traded down 0.2% Friday to $25.88 while copper fell 0.3% to $4.7270.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.2%, London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.3%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.4%. The German DAX gained 0.6%, French CAC 40 rose 0.4% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.7%.

Loans to households in the Eurozone rose 4.4% year-over-year in February. Spanish gross domestic product expanded by 2.2% on quarter during the fourth quarter, while producer price inflation increased to a new record high of 40.7% year-over-year in February from 35.7% in the previous month.

Retail sales in the UK dropped 0.3% in February following a 1.9% growth in January, while GfK consumer confidence indicator declined to its lowest level in 16 months in March.

Economics

The pending home sales index fell 4.1% for February, versus analysts’ expectations for a 1% growth.

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Mary Daly will speak at 11:00 a.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Thomas Barkin is set to speak at 11:30 a.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller will speak at 12:00 p.m. ET.

The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week is scheduled for release at 1:00 p.m. ET.

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Check out our premarket coverage here .

COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 81,565,950 cases with around 1,002,250 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,016,370 cases and 516,780 deaths, while Brazil reported over 29,767,680 COVID-19 cases with 658,360 deaths. In total, there were at least 478,323,110 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,134,520 deaths.