Mid-Day Market Update: Crude Oil Rises 1%; Rigel Pharmaceuticals Shares Slide

U.S. stocks traded mixed midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite adding around 50 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded down 0.21% to 33,110.37 while the NASDAQ rose 0.39% to 12,223.18. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.12% to 4,155.85.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Communication services shares jumped by 1.1% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Redbox Entertainment Inc. RDBX, up 20% and DouYu International Holdings Limited DOYU up 18%.

In trading on Wednesday, materials shares fell 0.9%.

Top Headline

Campbell Soup Company CPB reported upbeat results for its third quarter and raised its sales guidance.

Campbell Soup posted adjusted earnings of $0.70 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.61 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $2.13 billion, versus market expectations of $2.05 billion.

Campbell Soup said it sees fiscal year 2022 organic net sales increasing between 1% and 2%, versus its earlier view of a 1% decline to a 1% rise.

Equities Trading UP

Symbotic Inc. SYM shares shot up 68% to $15.30. Symbotic reported the completion of its business combination with SVF Investment Corp. to become a publicly traded company.

Shares of HeartCore Enterprises, Inc. HTCR got a boost, shooting 193% to $2.99 after the company authorized a $3.5 million buyback.

OneConnect Financial Technology Co., Ltd. OCFT shares were also up, gaining 34% to $1.77 after the company’s board approved to upsize its share repurchase program.

Equities Trading DOWN

Loyalty Ventures Inc. LYLT shares tumbled 52% to $5.32 after the company said it will re-evaluate its 2022 revenue and EBITDA guidance and said its AIR MILES reward program and AIR MILES' sponsor Sobeys were unable to align on extension terms.

Shares of Phoenix Motor Inc. PEV were down 41% to $4.4006. Phoenix Motor priced its initial public offering of 2.1 million shares at $7.50 per share.

Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. RIGL was down, falling 53% to $0.8251 after the company announced data from the FORWARD Phase 3 clinical trial did not demonstrate statistical significance in the primary efficacy endpoint.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1% to $120.58, while gold traded up 0.5% to $1,860.90.

Silver traded up 0.1% to $22.185 on Wednesday while copper rose 0.1% to $4.4385.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.77%, London’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.28% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.22%. The German DAX dropped 0.96%, French CAC 40 fell 1.11% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 0.72%.

The trade gap in France shrank to €12.2 billion in April from a record high gap of €12.7 billion in the previous month, and reported a current account gap of EUR 3.4 billion. Industrial production in Germany rose 0.7% in April, while Halifax house price index in the UK rose 10.5% year-over-year in May.

Economics

Wholesale inventories in the US rose 2.2% from a month ago to $861.8 billion in April.

US crude oil inventories increased by 2.025 million barrels in the week ended June 3rd, following a 5.068 million decline in the prior period, the Energy Information Administration said.

The Treasury is set to auction 10-year notes at 1:00 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 86,782,400 cases with around 1,034,280 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,190,280 cases and 524,710 deaths, while Brazil reported over 31,266,160 COVID-19 cases with 667,400 deaths. In total, there were at least 536,700,990 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,323,740 deaths.