Nasdaq Drops 75 Points; Crude Oil Down 2%

U.S. stocks traded lower midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite dropping 75 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded down 0.22% to 33,521.11 while the NASDAQ fell 0.68% to 10,939.93. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.36% to 3,927.19.

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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

Stocks of crude oil in the US dropped by 5.187 million in the week ended December 2, 2022, compared to market expectations for a 3.305 million decline, the US Energy Information Administration said.

Equities Trading UP

• Prometheus Biosciences, Inc. RXDX shares shot up 169% to $96.98 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 Vor Biopharma Inc. VOR got a boost, shooting 29% to $5.56 after the company disclosed initial clinical data from VBP101, its Phase 1/2a multicenter, open-label, first-in-human study of tremtelectogene empogeditemcel or “trem-cel” in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Vor Bio also priced underwritten offering of 15.3 million shares of common stock at $4.30 per share.
• TransCode Therapeutics, Inc. RNAZ shares were also up, gaining 133% to $0.9799 after the company announced withdrawal of the Registration Statement on Form S-1 filed on November 28, 2022 for a share offering for up to 12.5 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Ensysce Biosciences, Inc. ENSC shares tumbled 51% to $1.0910 after the company announced pricing of a $4.1 million public offering.
• Shares of Versus Systems Inc. VS were down 47% to $0.7836 after the company announced pricing of a $2.1 million public offering.
• iBio, Inc. IBIO was down, falling 52% to $0.7625 after the company reported pricing of $3.5 million underwritten public offering of 3,365,385 shares at $1.04 per share.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 2.1% to $72.70 while gold traded up 0.4% at $1,789.50.

Silver traded up 1.6% to $22.70 on Wednesday while copper rose 0.1% to $3.8210.

Stocks of crude oil in the US fell by 6.426 million barrels for the week ended December 2, 2022, the API said Tuesday. Stocks of crude oil in the US dropped by 5.187 million in the week ended December 2, 2022, compared to market expectations for a 3.305 million decline, the US Energy Information Administration said.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.26%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.07% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.22%. The German DAX declined 0.22%, French CAC 40 fell 0.03% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.19%.

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%.
• Stocks of crude oil in the US dropped by 5.187 million in the week ended December 2, 2022, compared to market expectations for a 3.305 million decline, the US Energy Information Administration 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 100,962,660 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.