Crude Oil Edges Higher; American Airlines Raises Profit Outlook

U.S. stocks traded mixed toward the end of trading, with the Nasdaq Composite falling more than 250 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.60% to 35,270.02 while the NASDAQ fell 1.89% to 14,086.02. The S&P 500, also fell, declining, 0.57% to 4,539.75.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Health care shares climbed by 1.9% on Thursday.
• In trading on Thursday, consumer discretionary shares fell by 2.7%.

Top Headline

American Airlines Group Inc AAL reported better-than-expected earnings and sales results for its second quarter.

American Airlines reported second-quarter FY23 operating revenue growth of 4.7% year-over-year to $14.10 billion, beating the consensus of $13.74 billion. AAL's Q1 adjusted EPS of $1.92 beat the consensus of $1.58.

American Airlines raised its FY23 adjusted EPS outlook to $3.00-$3.75 from the prior view of $2.50-$3.50 versus consensus of $3.10.

Equities Trading UP

• Gorilla Technology Group Inc. GRRR shares shot up 15% to $2.6299 after the company announced a strategic relationship with British Telecom to deliver an AI-powered innovative Smart Port solution.
• Shares of Pasithea Therapeutics Corp. KTTA got a boost, shooting 19% to $0.5703 after the company rejected an unsolicited, non-binding acquisition proposal from Lucy Scientific Discovery. The company also authorized the repurchase of up to 5.7 million shares at $0.70/share.
• SigmaTron International, Inc. SGMA shares were also up, gaining 23% to $4.4192 after the company reported results for the fourth quarter.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Vir Biotechnology, Inc. VIR shares dropped 45% to $12.74 after the company's Phase 2 PENINSULA trial of VIR-2482 for the prevention of symptomatic influenza A illness did not meet primary or secondary efficacy endpoints.
• Shares of Netcapital Inc. NCPL were down 40% to $0.6976 after the company announced pricing of a public offering.
• Aspira Women's Health Inc. AWH was down, falling 32% to $2.72 after the company announced a registered direct offering of around 1.7 million shares at $2.75/share and $3.98/share for directors & officers, for gross proceeds of approximately $4.7 million.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.4% to $75.63 while gold traded down 0.4% at $1,972.60.

Silver traded down 1.5% to $24.995 on Thursday while copper rose 0.5% to $3.8325.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.42%, London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.76% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.72% The German DAX gained 0.59% French CAC 40 rose 0.79% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.36%.

The current account deficit in the Eurozone shrank to EUR 11.3 billion in May from EUR 29 million in the year-ago month. The manufacturing climate indicator in France came in unchanged at 100 in July. Annual producer inflation in Germany fell to 0.1% in June from 1% in May.

Italy posted a current account surplus of EUR 1.403 billion in May versus a year-ago deficit of EUR 1.542 billion. Spain’s trade gap shrank to €3.11 billion in May from €4.76 billion in the year-ago period.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly lower on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 falling 1.23%, China’s Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.92% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index declining 0.13%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex, meanwhile, rose 0.7%.

The annual inflation rate in Hong Kong eased to 1.9% in June from 2% a month ago. The People's Bank of China held lending rates unchanged during its July fixing. Exports from Japan climbed by 1.5% year-over-year to JPY 8,744.06 billion in June, while imports declined by 12.9% year-over-year to JPY 8,701.01 billion.

Economics

• U.S. initial jobless claims declined by 9,000 from the earlier week to 228,000 in the week ending July 15, versus market expectations of 242,000.
• The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index came in little changed at -13.5 in July compared to a reading of -13.7 in June.
• Existing home sales in the U.S. declined 3.3% to an annualized rate of 4.16 million units in June.
• U.S. natural-gas supplies rose 41 billion cubic feet last week, the EIA said.

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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 107,412,810 cases with around 1,169,020 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,995,050 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 691,748,360 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,901,510 deaths.