U.S. stocks traded lower toward the end of trading, with the Dow Jones dropping more than 800 points.

The Dow traded down 2.62% to 33,077.91 while the NASDAQ fell 3.45% to 10,785.29. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 2.80% to 3,883.40.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Real estate shares fell by just 1.1% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Creative Media & Community Trust (NASDAQ:CMCT), up 1%, and Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI), up 1%.

In trading on Thursday, communication services shares tumbled by 3.7%.

Top Headline

The ECB increased interest rates by 50 bps during its latest meeting, announcing a fourth rate hike. The Bank of England also increased interest rates by 50 basis points to 3.5% during its December meeting.

Equities Trading UP

• Kintara Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: KTRA) shares shot up 30% to $10.39. Kintara Therapeutics received orphan drug designation for VAL-083 for THE treatment of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma.
• Shares of IMV Inc. (NASDAQ:IMV) got a boost, shooting 15% to $2.47 after the company announced initial data from the ongoing Phase 2B VITALIZE trial in patients with r/r DLBCL.
• Astria Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATXS) shares were also up, gaining 15% to $12.64 after the company announced preliminary results from the Phase 1a trial of STAR-0215 in healthy subjects. Concurrently, Astria priced an underwritten offering of 9.08 million shares at $11.01 per share for gross proceeds of $100 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.4% to $76.24 while gold traded down 1.7% at $1,787.80.

Silver traded down 3.6% to $23.275 on Thursday while copper fell 3% to $3.7625.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 2.85%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.93% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.7%. The German DAX dropped 3.28%, French CAC 40 fell 3.09% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 3.45%.

The ECB increased interest rates by 50 bps during its latest meeting, announcing a fourth rate hike. The Bank of England increased interest rates by 50 basis points to 3.5% during its December meeting.

Spain's trade deficit widened to EUR 6.85 billion in October from EUR 3.36 billion in the year-
ago month. The annual inflation rate in France came in at 6.2% in November. Wholesale prices in Germany accelerated 14.9% year-over-year in November.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Thursday, with the Japan’s Nikkei dropping 0.37% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropping 1.55%. China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.25%.

The annual wholesale price inflation rate in India eased to 5.85% in November from 8.39% in the previous month. Industrial production in Japan dropped by 3.2% month-over-month in October following a final 1.7% decline a month ago. Japan's core machinery orders rose 5.4% month-over-month in October, while trade deficit surged to JPY 2,027.4 billion in November.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority increased the base rate by 50 basis points to 4.75%. China's unemployment rate climbed to a six-month high of 5.7% in November, while industrial production rose 2.2% year-over-year in November. China's retail trade dropped by 5.9% year-over-year in November.

Economics

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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 101,589,370 cases with around 1,111,660 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,676,530 cases and 530,660 deaths, while France reported over 38,682,980 COVID-19 cases with 160,120 deaths. In total, there were at least 655,803,840 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,665,180 deaths.