Nasdaq Down 60 Points; Alibaba Posts Upbeat Q2 Earnings

U.S. stocks traded lower toward the end of trading, with the Nasdaq Composite dropping around 60 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded down 0.18% to 33,491.86 while the NASDAQ fell 0.54% to 11,123.49. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.56% to 3,936.57.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares rose by 0.1% on Thursday. Leading the sector was strength from Ardelyx, Inc. ARDX and OmniAb, Inc. OABI.

In trading on Thursday, utilities dipped by 1.8%.

Top Headline

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter, while sales missed estimates. The company also announced its board approved to upsize its share repurchase program by another $15 billion.

Alibaba said third-quarter revenue increased 3% year-over-year to RMB207,176 million ($29.12 billion), which missed average analyst estimates of $29.45 billion. The China-based e-commerce company reported quarterly earnings of $1.82 per share, which beat average estimates of $1.64 per share.

Equities Trading UP

• Bath & Body Works, Inc. BBWI shares shot up 23% to $38.16 after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 results.
• Shares of Ardelyx, Inc. ARDX got a boost, shooting 47% to $1.7893 after the company announced the FDA Advisory Committee voted 9-to-4 that the benefits of XPHOZAH outweigh its risks for the control of serum phosphorus in adult patients with chronic kidney disease on dialysis.
• Elevate Credit, Inc. ELVT shares were also up, gaining 71% to $1.81 after the company agreed to be acquired by Park Cities Asset Management in an all-cash transaction at an implied value of $67 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Editas Medicine, Inc. EDIT shares tumbled 16% to $10.33 after the company announced clinical data from the Phase 1/2 BRILLIANCE trial of EDIT-101.
• Shares of Tenaya Therapeutics, Inc. TNYA were down 26% to $2.36 after the company announced pricing of a public offering of 22,613,307 shares of common stock at a price of $2.60 per share.
• DZS Inc. DZSI was down, falling 18% to $11.20 after the company announced pricing of a roughly $28.8 million public offering of 3,377,315 shares at a price of $11.50 per share

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 4.4% to $81.79 while gold traded down 0.9% at $1,760.20.

Silver traded down 2.8% to $20.92 on Thursday while copper fell 2.3% to $3.6880.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.42%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.06% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.75%. The German DAX rose 0.23%, French CAC 40 fell 0.47% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.78%.

The Eurozone consumer price inflation fell to 10.6% year-over-year in versus a preliminary estimate of 10.7%, while construction output in the region increased 1% year-over-year in September. Passenger car registrations in the European Union surged 12.2% year-over-year to 745,855 units in October.

Spanish trade deficit increased to EUR 6.98 billion in September from EUR 2.39 billion in the year-ago.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Thursday, with the Japan’s Nikkei dropping 0.35% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 1.15%. China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.15%.

Hong Kong’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.8% in the three months ending October. Foreign direct investment into China jumped 14.4% from a year ago to CNY 1.09 trillion during the first ten months of the year. The unemployment rate in Australia fell to 3.4% in October from 3.5% in September. Exports from Japan jumped by 25.3% year-over-year to JPY 9,001.5 billion, while imports to the country climbed 53.5% to a new high of JPY 11,164.8 billion during October.

Economics

• US jobless claims dropped by 4,000 to 222,000 on the week ending November 12th, compared to market estimates of 225,000.
• The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index declined to -19.4 in November from -8.7 in the previous month, recording the weakest level since May 2020.
• Housing starts in the US dropped 4.2% month-over-month to an annualized rate of 1.425 million in October, while building permits fell 2.4% to an annual rate of 1.526 million.
• US natural-gas supplies rose 64 billion cubic feet last week, the EIA said.

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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 100,054,790 cases with around 1,101,370 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,668,290 cases and 530,540 deaths, while France reported over 37,217,030 COVID-19 cases with 158,000 deaths. In total, there were at least 641,668,210 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,620,360 deaths.