Nasdaq Edges Lower Following Fed Minutes; C4 Therapeutics Shares Jump

U.S. stocks traded mostly lower toward the end of trading, with the Dow Jones dropping around 100 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded down 0.30% to 34,316.70 while the NASDAQ fell 0.04% to 13,811.43. The S&P 500, also fell, dropping, 0.09% to 4,451.52.

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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 2.4%.

Top Headline

The minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on June 14 reveal a strong consensus among board members for additional interest rate hikes in 2023, echoing recent remarks by Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who has advocated for two more increases.

Equities Trading UP

• C4 Therapeutics, Inc. CCCC shares shot up 16% to $3.28 after the company announced the FDA cleared its investigational new drug application for CFT8919.
• Shares of Impel Pharmaceuticals Inc. IMPL got a boost, shooting 44% to $1.83 after the company received US patent for respiratory tract delivery of levodopa and DOPA decarboxylase inhibitor for Parkinson's disease.
• Allarity Therapeutics, Inc. ALLR shares were also up, gaining 27% to $8.02 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

• 1847 Holdings LLC EFSH shares dropped 34% to $0.2297 after the company reported pricing of $1.869 million public offering.
• Shares of Arrival ARVL were down 14% to $2.39. Arrival said on Monday that its proposed merger with special purpose acquisition company Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp V has been terminated.
• AXT, Inc. AXTI was down, falling 19% to $2.8390. AXT said Tongmei, its subsidiary in China, expects to proceed to immediately seek permits from the applicable Chinese authorities to export gallium and germanium substrate products.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 3.3% to $72.12 while gold traded down 0.1% at $1,928.00.

Silver traded up 1.4% to $23.435 on Wednesday while copper fell 0.7% to $3.7685.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.73%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.03% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index declined 1.06% The German DAX fell 0.63% French CAC 40 fell 0.80% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index slipped 0.59%.

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 U.S. Federal Reserve released minutes from its recent meeting.

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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.