U.S. stocks traded lower toward the end of trading, with Nasdaq Composite dropping over 100 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded down 0.04% to 34,040.13 while the NASDAQ fell 0.77% to 13,562.00. The S&P 500, also fell, dropping, 0.23% to 4,378.81.

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Patterson Companies Inc (NASDAQ:PDCO) reported better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

Patterson reported a net sales increase of 5% year-over-year to $1.72 billion for the fourth quarter of 2023, beating the consensus of $1.66 billion. Adjusted EPS of $0.84 beat the analyst consensus of $0.70.

Patterson expects the FY24 adjusted EPS forecast of $2.45 to $2.55 against the consensus of $2.34.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2% to $72.58 while gold traded down 0.2% at $1,944.20.

Silver traded down 1.8% to $22.825 on Wednesday while copper rose 0.7% to $3.91.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.50%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.13% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.04% The German DAX dropped 0.55% French CAC 40 fell 0.46% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.12%.

Passenger car registrations in the European Union jumped 18.5% year-over-year to around 1 million units in May.

The consumer price inflation in the U.K. came in unchanged at 8.7% in May, while producer price inflation slowed to 2.9% year-over-year in May versus a revised 5.2% in the prior month.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 0.56%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropping 1.98% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropping 1.31%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.3%.

Hong Kong’s current account surplus fell to HKD 41.3 billion in the first quarter versus HKD 86.3 billion in the year-ago month. Australia’s Westpac-Melbourne Institute Leading Economic Index came in flat from the previous month in May.

Economics

Mortgage applications in the U.S. rose 0.5% in the week ended June 16.

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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 107,248,390 cases with around 1,167,380 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,993,670 cases and 531,890 deaths, while France reported over 40,126,960 COVID-19 cases with 167,590 deaths. In total, there were at least 690,635,950 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,893,340 deaths.