Nasdaq Edges Higher; Crude Oil Falls Sharply

U.S. stocks pared some losses midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite turning higher on Thursday.

The Dow traded down 0.23% to 32,737.00 while the NASDAQ rose 0.05% to 12,674.01. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.10% to 4,151.02.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Utilities shares climbed 0.7% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included NRG Energy, Inc. NRG, up 5% and Sunnova Energy International Inc. NOVA up 5%.

In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell 2.1%.

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 174% to $12.10 after gaining over 12% on Wednesday.

Shares of ChemoCentryx, Inc. CCXI got a boost, shooting 109% to $50.35 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 38% to $4.51 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 35% to $136.12. SiTime posted upbeat quarterly results, but lowered its forecast for the year.

Shares of Aris Water Solutions, Inc. ARIS were down 27% to $16.20 after the company reported Q2 results and announced acquisition of the assets of Delaware Energy Services, LLC.

Gannett Co., Inc. GCI was down, falling 29% to $2.2750 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 3.1% to $87.86, while gold traded up 1.6% to $1,804.60.

Silver traded up 0.9 % to $20.075 on Thursday while copper rose 0.4% to $3.4815.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.18%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.03% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.23%. The German DAX climbed 0.55%, French CAC 40 surged 0.64% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.31%.

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.

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.