Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Higher; US Economy Adds 431,000 Jobs In March

U.S. stocks opened higher this morning following the release of non-farm payroll data for March.

The Dow traded up 0.17% to 34,735.64 while the NASDAQ rose 0.30% to 14,262.94. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.20% to 4,539.56.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares jumped by 1.1% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Borr Drilling Limited BORR, up 17% and Tellurian Inc. TELL up 16%.

In trading on Friday, industrials shares fell 0.3%.

Top Headline

The US economy added 431,000 payrolls in March, down from analysts’ estimates of 490,000. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.6% in March from 3.8% in the previous month

Equities Trading UP

Blackboxstocks Inc. BLBX shares shot up 40% to $3.75 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 sales results.

Shares of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, Inc. CSSE got a boost, shooting 28% to $10.22 after the company reported Q4 earnings results.

DiDi Global Inc. DIDI shares were also up, gaining 25% to $3.16. Shares of several Chinese stocks traded higher following reports indicating Chinese authorities are preparing to give U.S. regulators full access to auditing reports of most of the companies listed on American exchanges.

Equities Trading DOWN

SELLAS Life Sciences Group, Inc. SLS shares tumbled 39% to $4.05 after the company announced an exclusive license agreement with GenFleet in which the company will pay GenFleet a total of up to $150 million. The company also announced a $25 million common stock offering.

Shares of Redwire Corporation RDW were down 27% to $6.22 after the company reported FY21 earnings results and issued FY22 sales guidance.

ARCA biopharma, Inc. ABIO was down, falling 21% to $1.8099 after the company reported the results from its Phase 2 trial of ASPEN-COVID did not meet the primary endpoint.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.5% to $99.79, while gold traded down 0.8% to $1,938.20.

Silver traded down 0.9% Friday to $24.90 while copper fell 0.8% to $4.7115.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.5%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.3%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.9%. The German DAX gained 0.2%, French CAC 40 gained 0.3% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.6%.

The S&P Global Eurozone manufacturing PMI fell to 56.5 in March versus an initial estimate of 57, while annual inflation rate in the Eurozone climbed to an all-time high of 7.5% in March from 5.9% in February.

German manufacturing PMI was revised lower to 56.9 in March versus a preliminary of 57.6, while Italy’s manufacturing PMI slipped to 55.8 in March from 58.3 in the prior month. The S&P Global French manufacturing PMI declined to 54.7 in March from 57.2 in February, while the country’s government budget deficit narrowed to EUR 37.6 billion in February from EUR 47.5 billion in the year-ago month. Spanish manufacturing PMI declined to 54.2 in March from 56.9 in the previous month.

Economics

The US economy added 431,000 payrolls in March, down from analysts’ estimates of 490,000. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.6% in March from 3.8% in the previous month.

The S&P Global Manufacturing PMI was revised higher to 58.8 in March from a preliminary reading of 58.5.

The ISM Manufacturing PMI declined to 57.1 in March from 58.6 in February.

Construction spending rose 0.5% to an annual rate of $1.704 trillion in February.

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

COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 81,780,500 cases with around 1,007,320 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,025,770 cases and 521,210 deaths, while Brazil reported over 29,947,890 COVID-19 cases with 659,860 deaths. In total, there were at least 488,723,070 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,167,370 deaths.