Dow Falls 200 Points; TravelCenters of America Shares Jump

U.S. stocks traded lower midway through trading, with the Dow Jones dropping around 200 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded down 0.61% to 33,921.27 while the NASDAQ fell 0.61% to 11,997.21. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.60% to 4,122.69.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Energy shares traded fell by just 0.1% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included NexTier Oilfield Solutions Inc. NEX, up 12%, and PBF Energy Inc. PBF, up 11%.
• In trading on Thursday, utilities shares dipped by 0.9%.

Top Headline

Producer prices for final demand rose 0.7% month-over-month in January, the most in seven months and also above market estimates of 0.4%.

Equities Trading UP

• TravelCenters of America Inc. TA shares shot up 71% to $84.51 after BP announced it will acquire the company for $86 per share in cash.
• Shares of NexImmune, Inc. NEXI got a boost, shooting 53% to $0.6270 after the company said that new preclinical data showed that AIM ACT T cells enhance the response to bispecific T cell engager therapy.
• Community Health Systems, Inc. CYH shares were also up, gaining 45% to $7.38 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 earnings.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Toast, Inc. TOST shares tumbled 20% to $20.77 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 EPS earnings.
• Shares of RingCentral, Inc. RNG were down 22% to $37.85 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 revenue and issued weak revenue guidance for the first quarter.
• Atlis Motor Vehicles, Inc. AMV was down, falling 36% to $1.08 after the company reported pricing of $13.0 million public offering.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.2% to $78.77 while gold traded up 0.1% at $1,847.00.

Silver traded up 0.4% to $21.65 on Thursday while copper rose 2.9% to $4.1255.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.19%, London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.18% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.35%. The German DAX gained 0.18% French CAC 40 gained 0.89% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 1.16%.

Spanish trade deficit shrank to EUR 4.51 billion in December from EUR 5.34 billion in the year-ago month.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly higher on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 0.71%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gaining 0.84% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index declining 0.96%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex gained 0.1%.

Hong Kong’s unemployment rate fell to 3.4% during the three months ending Jan. 2023, from 3.5% in the October-December period. Average new home prices in China fell by 1.5% year-over-year in January. Consumer inflation expectations in Australia declined to 5.1% in February versus 5.6% in January, while unemployment rate in the country rose to 3.7% in January.

Japanese core machinery orders increased 1.6% month-over-month in December. Exports from Japan rose by 3.5% year-over-year to JPY 6,551.2 billion in January, while imports increased 17.8% to JPY 10,047.8 billion.

Economics

• US jobless claims dropped to 194,000 in the week ending Feb. 11, down from the revised level of 195,000 in the prior week. However, analysts were expecting a reading of 200,000.
• Housing starts in the US dropped by 4.5% from a month ago to an annualized rate of 1.309 million in January, while building permits increased 0.1% to 1.3 million.
• Producer prices for final demand rose 0.7% month-over-month in January, the most in seven months and also above market estimates of 0.4%.
• The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index fell to -24.3 in February from -8.9 in the prior month.
• US natural gas supplies dropped 100 billion cubic feet during the week ended Feb. 10, 2023, compared to market expectations for a 109 bcf decline, the EIA said.

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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 104,872,870 cases with around 1,141,220 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,684,500 cases and 530,750 deaths, while France reported over 39,574,440 COVID-19 cases with 164,650 deaths. In total, there were at least 678,109,910 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,786,220 deaths.