U.S. stocks traded lower midway through trading, with the Dow Jones dropping over 50 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded down 0.17% to 34,361.31 while the NASDAQ fell 0.14% to 13,797.72. The S&P 500, also fell, dropping, 0.09% to 4,451.55.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Communication services shares jumped by 1.4% on Wednesday.
• In trading on Wednesday, materials shares fell by 2.1%.

Top Headline

U.S. factory orders rose 0.3% month-over-month for May, versus market expectations for a 0.8% growth.

Equities Trading UP

• C4 Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCCC) shares shot up 17% to $3.30 after the company announced the FDA cleared its investigational new drug application for CFT8919.
• Shares of Impel Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:IMPL) got a boost, shooting 31% to $1.67 after the company received US patent for respiratory tract delivery of levodopa and DOPA decarboxylase inhibitor for Parkinson's disease.
• Allarity Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALLR) shares were also up, gaining 62% to $10.20 after the company said the initial data from Phase 2 trial of Ixempra shows potential for improved clinical benefit in DRP-selected metastatic breast cancer patients.

Equities Trading DOWN

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2.9% to $71.82 while gold traded up 0.1% at $1,931.50.

Silver traded up 1.4% to $23.445 on Wednesday while copper fell 0.6% to $3.7715.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.79%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.02% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index declined 1.16% The German DAX fell 0.68% French CAC 40 fell 0.84% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index slipped 0.58%.

Producer prices in the Eurozone dropped 1.9% month-over-month in May, versus market expectations for a 1.8% decline, while services PMI was revised lower to 52.0 in June versus the preliminary estimate of 52.4.

The S&P Global/CIPS services PMI for the UK was confirmed at 53.7 in June, recording the lowest level in three months. French services PMI fell to 48 in June from 52.5 in May, while German services PMI slipped to 54.1 from 57.2 in May.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping 0.25%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 1.57%, China’s Shanghai Composite Index declining 0.69%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.2%.

The S&P Global India services PMI fell to 58.5 in June versus 61.2 in May, while Caixin China general services PMI declined to 53.9 from 57.1. The S&P Global Hong Kong SAR PMI fell to 50.3 in June versus 50.6 in May, while Japanese services business activity index fell to 54.0 in June versus flash reading of 54.2.

Retail sales in Singapore slowed to 1.8% year-over-year in May compared to a 3.7% growth in the prior month. The Ai Group Australian Industry Index declined to -11.9 for June compared to May’s reading of -10.9.

Economics

• U.S. factory orders rose 0.3% month-over-month for May, versus market expectations for a 0.8% growth.
• The Federal Reserve will release minutes from its recent meeting at 2:00 p.m. ET.

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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 107,331,570 cases with around 1,168,270 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,994,400 cases and 531,910 deaths, while France reported over 40,138,560 COVID-19 cases with 167,640 deaths. In total, there were at least 691,171,280 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,897,870 deaths.