Dow Rises 50 Points; American Express Earnings Top Views

U.S. stocks traded higher this morning, with the Dow Jones gaining around 50 points on Friday.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded up 0.14% to 35,275.55 while the NASDAQ rose 0.52% to 14,135.92. The S&P 500, also rose, gaining, 0.32% to 4,549.47.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Information technology shares climbed by 0.7% on Friday.
• In trading on Friday, materials shares fell by 0.3%.

Top Headline

American Express Company AXP reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter and reaffirmed its FY23 outlook.

American Express posted quarterly earnings of $2.89 per share, beating market estimates of $2.81 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $15.05 billion, missing expectations of $15.48 billion.

Equities Trading UP

• Digital World Acquisition Corp. DWAC shares shot up 40% to $18.76 after the company announced it reached a settlement with the SEC.
• Shares of Evelo Biosciences, Inc. EVLO got a boost, shooting 24% to $12.26 after the company terminated sublease agreement with Bio-Rad Laboratories.
• BioNexus Gene Lab Corp BGLC shares were also up, gaining 31% to $6.37. BioNexus Gene Lab reported pricing of $5 million public offering and uplisting to the Nasdaq Capital Market.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Sigma Additive Solutions, Inc. SASI shares dropped 32% to $0.2650.
• Shares of RedHill Biopharma Ltd. RDHL were down 19% to $1.50 after the company announced registered direct offering for the purchase and sale of 1,301,923 ADS's and warrant exercise for $3.8 million gross proceeds.
• Priveterra Acquisition Corp. PMGM was down, falling 15% to $10.23.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.5% to $75.71 while gold traded down 0.4% at $1,972.60.

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

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.1%, London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.1% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.1% The German DAX fell 0.4% French CAC 40 rose 0.3% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.1%.

The consumer confidence indicator in Spain surged to 92.4 in June from 73 in the prior month, recording the highest level since Oct. 2021. Retail sales in the UK increased by 0.7% from the prior month in June, following a revised 0.1% growth in the previous month.

The GfK Consumer Confidence indicator in the UK declined to a reading of -30 in July from -24 in the prior month.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly lower on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 falling 0.57%, China’s Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.06% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gaining 0.78%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex, meanwhile, fell 1.3%.

The annual inflation rate in Japan rose to 3.3% in June from 3.2% a month ago, while core consumer price index increased 3.3% from a year ago in June.

Economics

The Baker Hughes rig-count report for the latest week will be released at 1:00 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 107,433,830 cases with around 1,169,130 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 691,770,990 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,901,640 deaths.