Nasdaq Edges Lower; Gold Rises 1.5%

U.S. stocks traded mixed midway through trading, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite moving lower on Tuesday.

The Dow traded up 0.12% to 32,797.11 while the NASDAQ fell 0.23% to 10,521.67. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.05% to 3,815.93.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares rose by 1.4% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Nine Energy Service, Inc. NINE, up 8%, and Uranium Energy Corp. UEC, up 8%.

In trading on Tuesday, consumer discretionary shares tumbled by 1.1%.

Top Headline

Housing starts in the US fell 0.5% to an annualized rate of 1.427 million in November, while building permits dipped 11.2 percent from a month ago to an annual rate of 1.342 million in November.

Equities Trading UP

• Verona Pharma plc (NASDAQ: VRNA) shares shot up 33% to $17.96 after the company announced ensifentrine met primary and key secondary endpoints in the Phase 3 ENHANCE-1 trial for COPD.
• Shares of IceCure Medical Ltd ICCM got a boost, shooting 322% to $3.95 after the company announced interim results from the ICESECRET study for the treatment of patients with small renal masses who cannot be offered kidney-preserving surgery.
• Athenex, Inc. ATNX shares were also up, gaining 39% to $0.1880 after the company announced Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative reported a trial result of I-SPY2 trial for oral paclitaxel in combination with PD-1 and carboplatin in neoadjuvant breast cancer.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Magenta Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: MGTA) shares tumbled 47% to $0.4413 after the company reported it stopped dosing participants at the Cohort 4 dosing level and plans to dose additional participants at the Cohort 3 dosing level due to dose-limiting toxicities.
• Shares of Arcus Biosciences, Inc. RCUS were down 30% to $21.24. Gilead Sciences and Arcus Biosciences announced results from the fourth interim analysis of the ARC-7 Phase 2 study for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer with PD-L1 tumor proportion score ≥50% without epidermal growth factor receptor or anaplastic lymphoma kinase mutations.
• Entrada Therapeutics, Inc. TRDA was down, falling 27% to $14.60 after the company said it received a clinical hold notice from the FDA regarding its Investigational New Drug Application for ENTR-601-44 for the potential treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.7% to $75.69 while gold traded up 1.5% at $1,825.30.

Silver traded up 4.5% to $24.24 on Tuesday while copper rose 0.6% to $3.8070.

Euro zone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.15%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.3% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.96%. The German DAX fell 0.31%, French CAC 40 fell 0.18% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.23%.

The Eurozone recorded a current account deficit of EUR 4.4 billion in October versus a year-ago surplus of EUR 6.51 billion. Italy’s current account surplus shrank to EUR 710 million in October from EUR 3,024 million in the year-ago month.

The annual producer inflation in Germany declined to 28.2% in November from 34.5% in the previous month.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Tuesday, with the Japan’s Nikkei dropping 2.46% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index declining 1.33%. China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.07%.

The annual inflation rate in Hong Kong came in at 1.8% in November, the same as in the earlier month. The Bank of Japan kept its key short-term interest rate unchanged at -0.1%.

Economics

Housing starts in the US fell 0.5% to an annualized rate of 1.427 million in November, while building permits dipped 11.2 percent from a month ago to an annual rate of 1.342 million in November.

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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 101,825,070 cases with around 1,113,300 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,677,340 cases and 530,670 deaths, while France reported over 38,899,900 COVID-19 cases with 160,610 deaths. In total, there were at least 658,535,310 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,674,360 deaths.