U.S. Stocks Turn Higher; Nasdaq Rises 50 Points

U.S. stocks turned higher midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining 50 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.02% to 33,988.56 while the NASDAQ rose 0.39% to 12,988.14. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.30% to 4,287.01.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed 2.2% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Newpark Resources, Inc. NR, up 13% and Mammoth Energy Services, Inc. TUSK up 19%.

In trading on Thursday, health care shares fell by 0.5%.

Top Headline

The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index climbed to 6.2 in August from -12.3 in July.

Equities Trading UP

• Wolfspeed, Inc. WOLF shares shot up 30% to $111.44 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 EPS and sales results. Additionally, multiple firms raised their price target on the stock.
• Shares of Curis, Inc. CRIS got a boost, shooting 23% to $1.29 after the company announced the U.S. FDA has lifted the partial clinical hold on the TakeAim Lymphoma Phase 1/2 study of emavusertib.
• Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc. MNMD shares were also up, gaining 37% to $1.0250 amid mention of the stock on Discord. Mind Medicine recently posted a Q2 loss of $0.04 per share.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Unity Biotechnology, Inc. UBX shares tumbled 28% to $0.6998 after the company reported pricing of upsized underwritten public offering.
• Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. BBBY were down 25% to $17.26 following a Form 144 filing by RC Ventures, which suggested the firm proposed to sell 7.78 million common shares and certain call options. Additionally, Wedbush downgraded the stock to Underperform.
• America's Car-Mart, Inc CRMT was down, falling 21% to $94.73 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q1 earnings.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2.4% to $90.21, while gold traded down 0.1% to $1,775.20

Silver traded down 0.7% to $19.595 on Thursday while copper rose 1.5% to $3.6365.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.39%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.33% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.1%. The German DAX gained 0.49%, French CAC 40 rose 0.46% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.93%.

Annual inflation rate in the Eurozone was confirmed at a fresh record high of 8.9% in July, versus 8.6% in June, while construction output in the Eurozone rose 0.1% year-over-year in June.

Economics

• U.S. initial jobless claims dropped by 2,000 to 250,000 the week ended August 13th, compared to market expectations of 265,000.
• The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index climbed to 6.2 in August from -12.3 in July.
• Existing home sales in the US fell 5.9% to an annual rate of 4.81 million in July.
• The index of leading economic indicators fell 0.4% for July.
• U.S. natural-gas supplies climbed 18 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.
• Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George is set to speak at 1:20 p.m. ET.
• Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari will speak at 1:45 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 95,065,400 cases with around 1,064,200 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,298,860 cases and 527,200 deaths, while France reported over 34,276,080 COVID-19 cases with 153,330 deaths. In total, there were at least 598,289,170 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,464,140 deaths.