US Stocks Open Higher; Dow Rises Over 100 Points

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

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.38% to 33,094.64 while the NASDAQ rose 1.23% to 12,584.52. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.93% to 4,179.10.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Materials shares rose by 1.6% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Danimer Scientific, Inc. DNMR, up 7% and Smith-Midland Corporation SMID up 6%.

In trading on Thursday, utilities shares rose by just 0.1%.

Top Headline

The US economy shrank an annualized 0.6% on quarter in the second quarter, compared to a 0.9% decline in the advance estimate.

Equities Trading UP

Vaccitech plc VACC shares shot up 24% to $5.76. The company recently posted a profit for the second quarter.

Shares of Snowflake Inc. SNOW got a boost, shooting 21% to $192.33 after the company reported better-than-expected Q2 sales results and issued product revenue guidance.

TDCX Inc TDCX shares were also up, gaining 19% to $9.88. TDCX , on Wednesday, reported second-quarter FY22 revenue growth of 23.3% year-on-year to $116.6 million, beating the consensus of $114.2 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

Peloton Interactive, Inc. PTON shares tumbled 19% to $10.94 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 sales results and issued Q1 sales guidance below estimates.

Shares of WeTrade Group, Inc. WETG were down 16% to $2.1300. WeTrade recently entered into strategic partnership with Guyguide to exclusively design and provide Monkeypox testing kits and insurance coverage products for traveling packages to US, Canada, Australia and European countries.

Minerva Neurosciences, Inc. NERV was down, falling 17% to $6.25. Minerva Neurosciences shares gained over 66% on Wednesday after Point72 Asset Management reported an 8.8% passive stake in the company.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.8% to $94.18, while gold traded up 0.4% to $1,769.30.

Silver traded up 0.7% to $19.04 on Thursday while copper rose 1.4% to $3.6945.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.4%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.3% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.1%. The German DAX gained 0.6%, French CAC 40 rose 0.2% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.1%.

The Ifo Business Climate indicator for Germany fell to 88.5 in August versus a revised 88.7 in July, while the country’s economy unexpectedly grew 0.1% on quarter in the second quarter. Manufacturing climate indicator in France declined for a second month to a reading of 104 in August.

UK’s car production surged 8.6% from a year ago to 58,043 units in July. Spanish annual producer inflation declined to 40.4% in July from a revised 43.1% annual surge in the prior month.

Economics

The three-day Jackson Hole economic symposium starts today, with Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell scheduled to speak on Friday.

The US economy shrank an annualized 0.6% on quarter in the second quarter, compared to a 0.9% decline in the advance estimate.

U.S. initial jobless claims fell by 2,000 to 243,000 in the week ended August 20th from a revised 245,000 in the prior period. Analysts, however, were expecting a reading of 253,000.

Corporate profits climbed 9.1% to a new record high of $2.62 trillion in the second quarter.

U.S. natural-gas supplies climbed 60 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

The Kansas City Fed manufacturing index for August is scheduled for release at 11:00 a.m. ET.

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

The Treasury will auction 7-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 95,734,080 cases with around 1,067,540 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,378,920 cases and 527,480 deaths, while France reported over 34,408,900 COVID-19 cases with 153,760 deaths. In total, there were at least 603,660,390 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,480,810 deaths.