US Stocks Open Lower; Dow Drops 250 Points

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones dropping around 250 points on Friday.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded down 0.75% to 32,971.43 while the NASDAQ fell 1.15% to 10,357.12. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.87% to 3,815.69.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares gained by 0.2% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Borr Drilling Limited BORR, up 9%, and Natural Gas Services Group, Inc. NGS, up 4%.

In trading on Friday, communication services shares fell 1.3%.

Top Headline

The Chicago PMI rose to 44.9 points in December from 37.20 points in the prior month, which was the weakest reading since June 2020.

Equities Trading UP

• Palisade Bio, Inc. PALI shares shot up 73% to $5.56. Palisade Bio announced $2.5 million registered direct offering and concurrent private placement priced above market under Nasdaq rules.
• Shares of Silo Pharma, Inc. SILO got a boost, shooting 55% to $5.30 after the company announced study results of SPU-21 for arthritis. The company said SPU-21 is effective in controlling arthritis progression.
• F-star Therapeutics, Inc. FSTX shares were also up, gaining 41% to $5.76. F-Star Therapeutics shares traded lower on Thursday after the Committee on Foreign Investment issued an interim order preventing the closing of the pending merger with Invox Pharma.

Equities Trading DOWN

• UP Fintech Holding Limited TIGR shares tumbled 25% to $3.5800 after the China Securities Regulatory Commission reported the companies have conducted illegal securities business.
• Shares of Futu Holdings Limited FUTU were down 24% to $44.50. Tencent Holding backed Chinese online broker Futu Holdings unexpectedly deferred its Hong Kong listing less than a day before its anticipated debut on December 30.
• Hoth Therapeutics, Inc. HOTH was down, falling 23% to $8.23 after the company announced a $10 million private placement priced at-the-market under Nasdaq rules.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.1% to $79.24 while gold traded down 0.3% at $1,821.50.

Silver traded down 2% to $23.755 on Friday while copper fell 0.4% to $ 3.8070.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.9%, London’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.8% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.7%. The German DAX dropped 1.1%, French CAC 40 fell 1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.9%.

Spanish current account surplus narrowed to EUR 2.7 billion in October, from EUR 3.5 billion in the year-ago month. The annual inflation rate in Spain eased to 5.8% in December from 6.8% a month ago. The Nationwide House Price Index in the UK rose by 2.8% year-over-year in December.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed higher on Friday, with the Japan’s Nikkei rising 0.01%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 0.20%, while China’s Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.51%.

India's fiscal deficit increased to INR 9.78 trillion in April-November compared to INR 6.96 trillion in the year-ago period. Chinese current account surplus widened to $144.3 billion in the third quarter versus $82.6 billion surplus in the year-ago period.

Economics

The Chicago PMI rose to 44.9 points in December from 37.20 points in the prior month, which was the weakest reading since June 2020.

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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 102,477,920 cases with around 1,117,750 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,679,260 cases and 530,690 deaths, while France reported over 39,270,370 COVID-19 cases with 161,840 deaths. In total, there were at least 664,190,060 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,694,450 deaths.