Nasdaq Down Over 3%; IsoPlexis Shares Spike Higher

U.S. stocks traded lower midway through trading, with the Dow Jones dropping around 600 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded down 1.79% to 32,778.33 while the NASDAQ fell 3.21% to 10,365.96. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 2.35% to 3,787.23.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares fell by just 0.4% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included ProQR Therapeutics N.V. PRQR, up 66%, and ORIC Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ORIC, up 63%.

In trading on Thursday, information technology shares dipped by 3.2%.

Top Headline

The US economy expanded an annualized 3.2% on quarter in the third quarter, up from 2.9% in the second estimate.

Equities Trading UP

• ProQR Therapeutics N.V. PRQR shares shot up 66% to $2.74 after the company, along with Eli Lilly, announced the expansion of their licensing and collaboration agreement of new genetic medicines. ProQR will receive an upfront payment of $75 million, plus an equity investment.
• Shares of ORIC Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ORIC got a boost, shooting 63% to $4.89 after the company announced it has entered into a clinical development collaboration for a potential Phase 2 study of ORIC-533 in multiple myeloma with Pfizer and agreed to sell about 5.38 million of its common shares at a price of $4.65 per share to Pfizer for proceeds of approximately $25 million.
• IsoPlexis Corporation ISO shares were also up, gaining 126% to $1.56. Berkeley Lights announced plans to acquire IsoPlexis in all-stock transaction at $57.8 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Evolv Technologies Holdings, Inc. EVLV shares tumbled 23% to $2.10. Evolv Technology announced $75 million in non-dilutive debt financing with Silicon Valley Bank.
• Shares of Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Inc. RCKT were down 16% to $18.83 after the company issued an update on anticipated registration path for RP-A501 in danon disease following end-of-Phase 1 FDA meeting.
• Ever-Glory International Group, Inc. EVK was down, falling 39% to $0.33. Ever-Glory announced voluntary delisting from the Nasdaq Global Market.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.4% to $77.99 while gold traded down 1.2% at $1,804.40.

Silver traded down 1.4% to $23.845 on Thursday while copper fell 0.9% to $3.7765.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.41% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.48%. The German DAX dipped 1.33%, French CAC 40 fell 1.05% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dipped 1.22%.

Industrial producer prices in Italy increased 29.4% year-over-year in November. Business investment in the UK dropped by 2.5% on quarter during the third quarter. The British economy grew by 1.9% year-over-year in the third quarter, while current account deficit narrowed to GBP 19.4 billion in the quarter.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Thursday, with the Japan’s Nikkei gaining 0.46% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gaining 2.71%. China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.46%.

The index of coincident economic indicators in Japan fell to 99.6 in October from 100.8 in the previous month, while index of leading economic indicators rose to 98.6 in October from 98.2 in September.

Economics

• US jobless claims increased by 2,000 to 216,000 in the week ending December 17, compared to market estimates of 220,000.
• The US economy expanded an annualized 3.2% on quarter in the third quarter, up from 2.9% in the second estimate.

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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 102,048,470 cases with around 1,114,930 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,677,590 cases and 530,680 deaths, while France reported over 39,025,730 COVID-19 cases with 160,870 deaths. In total, there were at least 659,881,370 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,678,920 deaths.