Nasdaq Down 75 Points After Fed Minutes; Crude Oil Rises 1.5%

U.S. stocks pared some losses toward the end of trading, following the release of Federal Reserve minutes.

The Dow traded down 0.11% to 34,113.71 while the NASDAQ fell 0.58% to 13,022. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.27% to 4,293.45.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed 1.2% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included DMC Global Inc. BOOM, up 9% and HighPeak Energy, Inc. HPK up 9%.

In trading on Wednesday, materials shares fell by 1.4%.

Top Headline

Lowe's Companies, Inc. LOW reported better-than-expected Q2 EPS results.

Lowe's reported a second-quarter FY22 sales decline of 0.34% year-on-year to $27.48 billion, missing the consensus of $28.14 billion. EPS of $4.67 beat the analyst consensus of $4.62.

Equities Trading UP

Blue Water Vaccines, Inc. BWV shares shot up 137% to $6.04 after the company announced it plans to explore the potential development of a novel monkeypox vaccine using its norovirus shell and protrusion virus-like particle platform.

Shares of Cassava Sciences, Inc. SAVA got a boost, shooting 27% to $25.75 after a form 4 filing showed Director Sanford Robertson purchased 100,000 shares at an average price of $20.69.

Hill International, Inc. HIL shares were also up, gaining 61% to $2.7950 after Global Infrastructure Solutions (GISI) and the company announced an agreement to merge in an all-cash transaction valued at $173 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

Stronghold Digital Mining, Inc. SDIG shares tumbled 24% to $2.42 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q2 sales results.

Shares of PAVmed Inc. PAVM were down 27% to $1.4457 after the company issued business update and preliminary Q2 financial results. Lake Street maintained PAVmed with a Buy and lowered the price target from $7 to $5.

Unity Biotechnology, Inc. UBX was down, falling 22% to $1.0650 after the company announced a $25 million common stock offering.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.5% to $87.82, while gold traded down 0.8% to $1,775.70.

Silver traded down 1.8% to $19.715 on Wednesday while copper fell 1.1% to $3.5850.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 0.91%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.27% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.91%. The German DAX dipped 2.04%, French CAC 40 fell 0.97% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 1.04%.

The annual inflation rate in the UK accelerated to 10.1% in July from 9.4% in the earlier period, while core producer prices in the UK rose by 14.6% year-over-year in July following a revised 14.9% increase in the previous month.

The Eurozone economy expanded 0.6% on quarter in the second quarter, down from a preliminary reading of 0.7% growth, and compared to a 0.5% rise in first quarter. The number of employed persons in the Eurozone increased by 0.3% on the quarter during the three months to June.

Economics

U.S. retail sales unexpectedly stalled in July, versus market expectations for a 0.1% increase.

U.S. business inventories increased 1.4% from a month ago in June.

U.S. crude-oil inventories dropped 7.1 million barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

The Federal Open Market Committee released minutes of its latest meeting.

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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 94,869,930 cases with around 1,063,080 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,286,250 cases and 527,130 deaths, while France reported over 34,240,330 COVID-19 cases with 153,240 deaths. In total, there were at least 597,284,190 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,460,130 deaths.