US Stocks Mixed; Housing Starts Surge In May

U.S. stocks traded mixed this morning, with Dow Jones dropping over 150 points on Tuesday.

Following the market opening Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.52% to 34,120.19 while the NASDAQ rose 0.15% to 13,710.23. The S&P 500, also fell, dropping, 0.32% to 4,395.56.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Utilities shares jumped by 1.2% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included ReNew Energy Global Plc RNW, up 5%, and Pampa Energía S.A. PAM, up 5%.
• In trading on Tuesday, materials shares fell by 0.2%.

Top Headline

Housing starts in the US surged 21.7% month-over-month to an annualized rate of 1.631 million in May. Building permits rose by 5.2% to an annual rate of 1.491 million in May.

Equities Trading UP

• DICE Therapeutics, Inc. DICE shares shot up 38% to $46.55 after Eli Lilly agreed to acquire the company for $48 per share in cash.
• Shares of VCI Global Limited VCIG got a boost, shooting 35% to $3.82 after the company announced it has been appointed by Cogia GmbH to distribute its AI-based "Socializer Messenger".
• Nuwellis, Inc. NUWE shares were also up, gaining 18% to $3.45 after the company announced a pilot agreement with DaVita.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Dragonfly Energy Holdings Corp. DFLI shares dropped 47% to $1.4850 after the company priced 10 million shares at $2 per share in an underwritten public offering.
• Shares of Gracell Biotechnologies Inc. GRCL were down 15% to $4.16.
• HUYA Inc. HUYA was down, falling 9% to $3.6850.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.2% to $70.95 while gold traded down 0.6% at $1,959.90.

Silver traded down 1.7% to $23.725 on Tuesday while copper fell 0.1% to $3.8865.

Euro zone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.3%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.1% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.2% The German DAX dropped 0.2% French CAC 40 climbed 0.1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.1%.

Construction output in the Eurozone increased by 0.2% year-over-year in April versus a revised 0.7% decline in the prior month. Italy recorded a current account deficit of EUR 1.516 billion in April versus the EUR 2.637 billion gap in the year-ago month.

German population increased by 1.3% to 84.4 million in 2022. Germany's producer prices increased 1% year-over-year in May versus a 4.1% rise in the prior month.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Tuesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 0.06%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropping 1.54% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropping 0.47%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.3%.

The People's Bank of China reduced one-year loan prime rate and five-year rate at the June fixing. The annual inflation rate in Hong Kong fell to 2% in May from 2.1% in the prior month. Industrial production in Japan rose by 0.7% month-over-month in April following a revised 0.3% growth in the previous month.

Economics

• Housing starts in the US surged 21.7% month-over-month to an annualized rate of 1.631 million in May.
• Building permits rose by 5.2% to an annual rate of 1.491 million in May.

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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 107,246,330 cases with around 1,167,380 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,993,570 cases and 531,890 deaths, while France reported over 40,124,880 COVID-19 cases with 167,540 deaths. In total, there were at least 690,605,800 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,892,800 deaths.