Dow Drops Over 100 Points; U.S. Trade Deficit Shrinks To This Level In June

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones falling more than 100 points on Thursday.

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.42% to 32,673.64 while the NASDAQ fell 0.49% to 12,605.89. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.43% to 4,137.18.

Also check this: Starbucks, Yum! Brands And 3 Stocks To Watch Heading Into Wednesday

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Utilities shares climbed 0.5% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included NRG Energy, Inc. NRG, up 5% and Enel Chile S.A. ENIC up 4%.

In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell 1.7%.

Top Headline

The trade deficit in the US shrank by $5.3 billion to a six-month low level of $79.6 billion in June. Exports from the US rose by 1.7%, while imports declined 0.3% during the month.

Equities Trading UP

InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp. NVIV shares shot up 166% to $11.76 after gaining over 12% on Wednesday.

Shares of ChemoCentryx, Inc. CCXI got a boost, shooting 108% to $50.25 after the company, and Amgen, announced an agreement under which Amgen will acquire the company for $52 per share in cash.

GreenLight Biosciences Holdings GRNA shares were also up, gaining 57% to $5.13 after jumping over 25% on Wednesday. Samsung Biologics and the company recently announced the completion of the first commercial-scale engineering run for the companies' mRNA production partnership.

Equities Trading DOWN

SiTime Corporation SITM shares tumbled 33% to $139.48. SiTime posted upbeat quarterly results, but lowered its forecast for the year.

Shares of Aris Water Solutions, Inc. ARIS were down 26% to $16.62 after the company reported Q2 results and announced acquisition of the assets of Delaware Energy Services, LLC.

Gannett Co., Inc. GCI was down, falling 28% to $2.3050 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q2 sales results.

Also check out: Markets Bet On U.S. Stock Futures With Easing Fear Levels

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.3% to $89.53, while gold traded up 1.4% to $1,801.50.

Silver traded up 1.3% to $20.16 on Thursday while copper rose 0.4% to $3.4790.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.3%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.1% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.3%. The German DAX climbed 0.6%, French CAC 40 surged 0.6% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.4%.

The S&P Global Eurozone construction PMI dropped to 45.7 in July from 47.0 in the previous month. UK new car registrations dropped 9% year-over-year to 121,162 units in July, while construction PMI declined to 48.9 in July from 52.6 in June.

The S&P Global Italian construction PMI declined to 46.2 in July from 50.4 in the previous month, while French construction PMI climbed to 48.6 from 46.4. The S&P Global German construction PMI declined to 43.7 in July from 45.9 in June, while factory orders in Germany fell 0.4% month-over-month in June.

Economics

The trade deficit in the US shrank by $5.3 billion to a six-month low level of $79.6 billion in June. Exports from the US rose by 1.7%, while imports declined 0.3% during the month.

US initial jobless claims rose by 6,000 to 260,000 the week that ended July 30th. However, analysts were expecting a reading of 259,000.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage will be released at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 8-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester is set to speak at 12:00 p.m. ET.

Check out this: Investor Fear Eases Further Following Upbeat Economic Reports

COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 93,593,210 cases with around 1,057,230 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,087,030 cases and 526,530 deaths, while France reported over 33,960,130 COVID-19 cases with 152,370 deaths. In total, there were at least 585,644,020 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,428,470 deaths.