Dow Surges Over 200 Points; Exxon Mobil Earnings Beat Views

U.S. stocks traded higher midway through trading, with the Dow Jones gaining over 200 points on Friday.

The Dow traded up 0.63% to 34,039.34 while the NASDAQ rose 0.35% to 12,184.79. The S&P 500, also rose, gaining, 0.60% to 4,160.11.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Energy shares rose by 1.3% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included U.S. Silica Holdings, Inc. SLCA, up 5%, and KLX Energy Services Holdings, Inc. KLXE, up 4%.
• In trading on Friday, consumer discretionary shares fell by 0.7%.

Top Headline

Exxon Mobil Corp XOM reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter on Friday.

Exxon Mobil reported Q1 revenues of $86.56 billion, beating the consensus of $85.41 billion. Adjusted EPS of $2.83 beat the consensus of $2.59.

Equities Trading UP

• TOP Financial Group Limited TOP shares shot up 765% to $172.92 after jumping around 198% on Thursday. Traders are circulating an article on China's Sina dated April 25th titled "Zhongyang Financial Group's Additional Issuance Was Approved By The U.S. SEC."
• Shares of CVRx, Inc. CVRX got a boost, shooting 33% to $12.65 after the company reported better-than-expected Q1 results.
• Tempest Therapeutics, Inc. TPST shares were also up, gaining 25% to $2.20 after the company announced early results from a global randomized Phase 1b/2 combination study of TPST-1120 in first-line hepatocellular carcinoma.

Equities Trading DOWN

Cloudflare, Inc. NET shares dropped 26% to $44.08 after the company issued weak revenue guidance and said it expects external headwinds to persist through the end of the fiscal year.

• Shares of First Republic Bank FRC were down 30% to $4.31 following a report suggesting the most likely outcome for the bank is FDIC receivership.
• Hillstream BioPharma, Inc. HILS was down, falling 57% to $0.4701 after the company priced 5.3 million shares at $0.50 per share for gross proceeds of $2.65 million.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.5% to $75.85 while gold traded up 0.2% at $2,003.00.

Silver traded up 0.4% to $25.32 on Friday while copper fell 0.2% to $3.8745.

Euro zone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.25%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.1% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.08% The German DAX rose 0.35%, French CAC 40 fell 0.29% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.67%.

The Eurozone economy expanded by 0.1% in the first quarter following a flat fourth quarter, but still missing market expectations for a 0.2% growth. The unemployment rate in Germany came in unchanged at 5.6% in April, while German gross domestic product was also unchanged during the first quarter.

Spanish economy grew by 0.5% on quarter during the first three months of the year. Spain reported a current account surplus of €2.3 billion in February versus a year-ago gap of €0.8 billion, while annual consumer price inflation rate in the country increased to 4.1% in April. Italy’s gross domestic product grew by 0.5% quarter-on-quarter during the three months leading to March.

Annual inflation rate in France increased to 5.9% in April, while producer prices in the country’s domestic markets rose by 2% month-over-month in March. The French economy expanded by 0.2% in the first quarter.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed higher on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 rising 1.40%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gaining 0.27% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index climbing 1.14%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.7%.

Japan's housing starts fell by 3.2% year-over-year in March following a 0.3% decline in the previous month. The Bank of Japan kept its key short-term interest rate unchanged at -0.1%. Retail sales in Japan rose by 7.2% year-over-year in March, while industrial production rose 0.8% month-over-month in March. Japan’s unemployment rate increased to 2.8% in March.

Economics

• Personal income in the US increased by 0.3% from a month ago in March, while personal spending came in unchanged from the prior period in March versus a revised 0.1% rise in February.
• Core PCE prices in the US increased by 0.3% month-over-month in March, the same pace as the previous month. The annual rate, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, eased to 4.6%, above market estimates of 4.5%.
• Compensation costs for civilian workers rose 1.2% on quarter during the three months to January.
• The Chicago PMI rose to 48.6 points in April from 43.8 in the previous month.
• The University of Michigan consumer sentiment rose to 63.5 in April from 62 in the previous month.

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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 106,613,320 cases with around 1,159,690 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,924,810 cases and 531,420 deaths, while France reported over 39,974,420 COVID-19 cases with 166,420 deaths. In total, there were at least 686,882,230 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,862,560 deaths.