Crude Oil Drops Sharply; Best Buy Earnings Top Expectations

U.S. stocks traded mostly higher toward the end of trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining more than 200 oints on Thursday.

The Dow traded down 0.02% to 32,793.29 while the NASDAQ rose 1.78% to 12,706.89. The S&P 500, also rose, gaining, 0.96% to 4,154.71.

Check This Out: Over $5M Bet On Southwest Gas? Check Out These 4 Stocks Insiders Are Buying

Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Information technology shares rose by 4.4% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included NVIDIA Corporation NVDA, up 27%, and Super Micro Computer, Inc. SMCI, up 24%.
• In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell 1.8%.

Top Headline

Best Buy Co Inc BBY reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings results.

Best Buy reported first-quarter FY24 sales decline of 11.1% year-on-year to $9.47 billion, missing the analyst consensus estimate of $9.52 billion. Non-GAAP EPS of $1.15 beat the analyst consensus of $1.11.

Equities Trading UP

• Beamr Imaging Ltd. BMR shares shot up 117% to $4.7767 after NVIDIA announced the release of NVENC Video Codec SDK 12.1 showcasing the integration with Beamr CABR.
• Shares of Kubient, Inc. KBNT got a boost, shooting 54% to $0.7471. Kubient and Adomni reported a definitive merger agreement
• Wearable Devices Ltd. WLDS shares were also up, gaining 278% to $1.65 after the company announced its Mudra Band for Apple Watch is available for preorder.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Annexon, Inc. ANNX shares dropped 59% to $2.1350 after the company announced topline results from its ARCHER Phase 2 trial of ANX007 in patients with geographic atrophy (GA).
• Shares of Digital Turbine, Inc. APPS were down 43% to $8.23 after the company reported mixed fourth-quarter financial results and issued first-quarter adjusted EPS and revenue guidance below estimates.
• Biocept, Inc. BIOC was down, falling 49% to $2.18 as the company reported pricing of $5.0 million underwritten public offering.

Also Check This Out: Bitcoin Drops Following Economic Reports; Synthetix Becomes Top Loser

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 3.4% to $71.78 while gold traded down 1% at $1,944.10.

Silver traded down 1.4% to $22.905 on Thursday while copper rose 0.9% to $3.5935.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.32%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.74% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.52% The German DAX declined 0.31% French CAC 40 fell 0.33% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.44%.

German economy contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter, while GfK Consumer Climate Indicator rose for an eighth month in a row to -24.2 heading into June. Producer prices in Spain dropped 4.5% year-over-year in April versus a revised 1.4% decline in the prior month. The manufacturing climate indicator in France dropped for a third month to a reading of 99 in May.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 0.39%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 1.93% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropping 0.11%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.2%.

Singapore’s economy expanded by 0.4% year-over-year in the first quarter versus the flash reading of 0.1%.Singapore's current account surplus fell to SGD 29.45 billion during the first quarter from SGD 34.43 billion in the year-earlier period.

Economics

• U.S. initial jobless claims increased to 229 thousand in the week ending May 20th, versus 225 thousand in the prior week and compared to market expectations of 245 thousand.
• The U.S. GDP grew by an annualized 1.3% on quarter in the first quarter, higher than market estimates of 1.1%.
• Corporate profits in the U.S. fell 6.8% to $2.307 trillion in the first quarter.
• Pending home sales in the U.S. came in unchanged in April following a 5.2% drop in March.
• U.S. natural gas supplies surged 96 billion cubic feet last week, the EIA said.

Now Read This: Wall Street's Most Accurate Analysts Say Hold These 3 Industrial Stocks With Over 4% Dividend Yields

COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 107,066,660 cases with around 1,164,710 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,988,420 cases and 531,850 deaths, while France reported over 40,066,340 COVID-19 cases with 167,270 deaths. In total, there were at least 689,218,760 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,882,150 deaths.