Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Nasdaq Down 200 Points; United Airlines Shares Jump

U.S. stocks turned lower toward the end of trading, with the Nasdaq dropping 200 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded down 0.41% to 35,016.87 while the NASDAQ fell 1.52% to 13,248.63. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.89% to 4,419.84.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer staples shares jumped by 0.5% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Vital Farms, Inc. VITL, up 6% and Local Bounti Corporation LOCL up 3%.

In trading on Thursday, communication services shares fell 2.2%.

Top Headline

U.S. initial jobless claims fell by 2 thousand to 184 thousand in the week ended April 16th. However, analysts were expecting a reading of 180 thousand.

Equities Trading UP

United Airlines Holdings, Inc. UAL shares shot up 10% to $51.40. United Airlines announced downbeat results for its first quarter. However, the company expects to return to profitability in Q2.

Shares of Inozyme Pharma, Inc. INZY got a boost, shooting 17% to $5.14. Inozyme Pharma’s Director Pivotal bioVenture Partners Fund I U.G.P., Ltd acquired a total of 1,070,000 shares at an average price of $3.69.

Insteel Industries, Inc. IIIN shares were also up, gaining 11% to $44.30 following better-than-expected Q2 results.

Equities Trading DOWN

Monarch Casino & Resort, Inc. MCRI shares tumbled 20% to $74.19 after the company reported Q1 results. Jefferies and Stifel downgraded the stock to Hold.

Shares of Xerox Holdings Corporation XRX were down 17% to $16.52 after the company swung to a loss in the first quarter.

Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. AMPE was down, falling 24% to $0.2577 after the company received written responses from the FDA under a Type C meeting request regarding the AP-013 Phase 3 trial results. The FDA disagreed with the proposed change from the Intent-To-Treat population to the modified Intent-To-Treat population. FDA did not agree AP-013 could serve as a second pivotal trial for Ampion.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.3% to $103.07, while gold traded down 0.4% to $1,948.40.

Silver traded down 2.6% Thursday to $24.605 while copper rose 0.8% to $4.6870.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.32%, London’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.02%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.51%. The German DAX climbed 0.98%, French CAC 40 climbed 1.36% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.29%.

Annual inflation rate in the Eurozone eased to 7.4% in March from initial reading of 7.5%. The manufacturing climate indicator in France rose to 108 in April from 107 in March.

Economics

U.S. initial jobless claims fell by 2 thousand to 184 thousand in the week ended April 16th.

The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index declined to 17.6 in April from 27.4 in March.

The index of leading economic indicators rose 0.3% for March.

U.S. natural gas supplies climbed 53 billion cubic feet 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 82,488,510 cases with around 1,017,090 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,049,970 cases and 522,060 deaths, while Brazil reported over 30,311,960 COVID-19 cases with 662,470 deaths. In total, there were at least 507,109,390 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,232,630 deaths.