US Stocks Mixed; Dow Rises 50 points

U.S. stocks traded mixed this morning, with the Dow Jones gaining more than 50 points on Wednesday.

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.18% to 33,657.18 while the NASDAQ fell 0.40% to 10,970.33. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.02% to 3,942.19.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares rose by 0.7% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included ProPetro Holding Corp. PUMP, up 4%, and Nine Energy Service, Inc. NINE, up 6%.

In trading on Wednesday, information technology shares dipped by 0.9%.

Top Headline

Nonfarm labor productivity in the US increased by an annualized 0.8% for the third quarter, while unit labor costs rose 2.4%.

Equities Trading UP

• Prometheus Biosciences, Inc. RXDX shares shot up 184% to $102.54 after the company announced results for PRA023 in both ARTEMIS-UC Phase 2 and APOLLO-CD Phase 2a studies. ARTEMIS-UC met the primary endpoint.
• Shares of BioVie Inc. BIVI got a boost, shooting 25% to $5.80. BioVie recently announced results from two Phase 2 trials assessing NE3107's potential in Parkinson's Disease (PD) and Alzheimer's Disease (AD).
• MongoDB, Inc. MDB shares were also up, gaining 18% to $170.43 after the company reported Q3 EPS results up from last year and better-than-expected sales results. The company also issued Q4 and FY23 EPS and sales guidance above analyst estimates.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Ensysce Biosciences, Inc. ENSC shares tumbled 51% to $1.09 after the comnpany announced pricing of a $4.1 million public offering.
• Shares of Carvana Co. CVNA were down 43% to $3.8150 following a downgrade from Wedbush. Reports indicate that some of the company's largest creditors have signed a pact to prevent a potential creditor fight.
• Daktronics, Inc. DAKT was down, falling 33% to $2.23. Daktronics decided to delay earnings call 'in order to address the determination that there is substantial doubt about the Company's ability to continue as a going concern.'

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.4% to $74.55 while gold traded up 0.7% at $1,795.50.

Silver traded up 2.2% to $22.835 on Wednesday while copper rose 0.5% to $3.8350.

Stocks of crude oil in the US fell by 6.426 million barrels for the week ended December 2, 2022, the API said Tuesday.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.46%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.1% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.3%. The German DAX declined 0.5%, French CAC 40 fell 0.3% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.1%.

The Eurozone quarterly economic growth was revised higher to 0.3% in the third quarter compared to preliminary reading of 0.2%, while number of employed persons in the region increased by 0.3% on quarter to 213.8 million during the quarter.

French current account deficit shrank to EUR 3.8 billion in October, compared to EUR 7.3 billion in the prior month, while trade deficit shrank to EUR 12.2 billion in October. Retail sales in Italy declined by 0.4% from a month ago in October. Industrial production in German fell 0.1% month-over-month during October.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Wednesday, with the Japan’s Nikkei dropping 0.72% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropping 3.22%. China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.40%.

Foreign exchange reserves in Hong Kong rose to $423.2 billion in November from $417.2 billion in the prior month, while Chinese foreign exchange reserves increased to $3.117 trillion in November from $3.052 trillion. China's trade surplus narrowed to $69.84 billion in November from $71.7 billion in the year-ago month.

The Reserve Bank of India increased its key repo rate by 35 bps to 6.25% at its recent meeting. The index of leading economic indicators in Japan rose to 99.0 in October of versus a revised of 98.2 in the previous month, while index of coincident economic indicators declined to 99.9 in October.

Economics

Nonfarm labor productivity in the US increased by an annualized 0.8% for the third quarter, while unit labor costs rose 2.4%.

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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 100,962,660 cases with around 1,107,790 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,674,870 cases and 530,630 deaths, while France reported over 38,184,080 COVID-19 cases with 159,360 deaths. In total, there were at least 651,154,310 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,650,340 deaths.