Nasdaq Rises 1.5%; G1 Therapeutics Shares Plummet

U.S. stocks traded higher midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining around 1.5% on Monday.

The Dow traded up 0.96% to 34,193.83 while the NASDAQ rose 1.52% to 11,896.75. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 1.03% to 4,132.54.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Information technology shares rose by 1.9% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Fastly, Inc. FSLY, up 27%, and Pagaya Technologies Ltd. PGY, up 21%.
• In trading on Monday, energy shares dipped by 0.8%.

Top Headline

TreeHouse Foods Inc THS reported mixed results for its fourth quarter.

The company posted quarterly sales growth of 22% year-on-year to $996.20 million, missing the consensus of $1.02 billion. Adjusted EPS of $0.98 beat the analyst consensus of $0.92.

Equities Trading UP

• Ocular Therapeutix, Inc. OCUL shares shot up 34% to $5.18 after the company announced interim 10-month data from an ongoing U.S. Phase 1 clinical trial evaluating OTX-TKI for the treatment of wet AMD.
• Shares of Top Ships Inc. TOPS got a boost, shooting 46% to $1.91 after the company entered into a time charter employment contract.
• COMSovereign Holding Corp. COMS shares were also up, gaining 32% to $5.77 after the company announced an 80% year-over-year reduction of outstanding secured debt.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Frequency Therapeutics, Inc. FREQ shares tumbled 82% to $0.7060 after the company announced its FX-322-208 study failed to meet its primary endpoint.
• Shares of G1 Therapeutics, Inc. GTHX were down 54% to $3.3001 after the company announced it will discontinue its PRESERVE 1 colorectal trial.
• Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. SRNE was down, falling 58% to $0.3940 after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Sorrento and its subsidiary, Scintilla Pharmaceuticals, commenced voluntary proceedings under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code on Monday.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.1% to $79.65 while gold traded down 0.7% at $1,861.90.

Silver traded down 0.9% to $21.87 on Monday while copper rose 0.9% to $4.0510.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.9%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.83% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 1.02%. The German DAX climbed 0.58% French CAC 40 surged 1.11% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.63%.

The European Commission increased the growth outlook for this year to 0.9% in the 20 countries using the euro, up from 0.3% expected last November. Headline inflation in the Euro zone is expected to decline to 5.6% in 2023 compared to 8.4% in 2022, according to the European Commission.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly lower on Monday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping 0.88%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropping 0.12% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index gaining 0.72%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex slipped 0.4%.

Singapore's non-oil domestic exports climbed by 3% year-over-year in 2022, versus a 12.1% increase in 2021. Singapore’s GDP grew by 2.1% from a year ago in Q4 versus the flash figure of 2.2%.

Economics

There were no major US economic releases Monday.

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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 104,766,850 cases with around 1,140,010 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,684,200 cases and 530,750 deaths, while France reported over 39,564,780 COVID-19 cases with 164,530 deaths. In total, there were at least 677,609,790 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,782,460 deaths.