Dow Dips Over 100 Points Ahead Of Fed Minutes; UniFirst Shares Fall After Q1 Results

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones index falling more than 100 points on Wednesday.

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded down 0.35% to 37,584.32 while the NASDAQ fell 0.66% to 14,668.39. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.49% to 4,719.52.

Check This Out: How To Earn $500 A Month From Apple Stock Following Tuesday's Slide

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares rose by 0.1% on Wednesday.

In trading on Wednesday, materials shares fell by 1.4%.

Top Headline

Shares of UniFirst Corporation UNF fell around 7% on Wednesday after the company released earnings for its first quarter.

UniFirst posted quarterly earnings of $2.26 per share, up from $1.81 per share in the year-ago period. The company’s sales came in at $593.52 million versus estimates of $589.64 million.

UniFirst continues to expect FY24 revenue of $2.415 billion to $2.435 billion versus expectations of $2.43 billion. The company sees earnings of $6.52 to $7.16 per share, versus market estimates of $7.59 per share.

Equities Trading UP

NexImmune, Inc. NEXI shares shot up 158% to $6.32 after gaining over 6% on Tuesday.

Shares of Trinity Place Holdings Inc. TPHS got a boost, surging 65% to $0.1836. The company reported in 8K Filing, mortgage lender agreed to extend the mortgage loan forbearance period to Jan. 31, 2024.

Brera Holdings PLC BREA shares were also up, gaining 71% to $1.25.

Equities Trading DOWN

RiskOn International, Inc. ROI shares dropped 32% to $0.3100. RiskOn International, in partnership with Meetkai, announced the launch of "askROI.com."

Shares of E-Home Household Service Holdings Limited EJH were down 26% to $2.83.

Nemaura Medical Inc. NMRD was down, falling 26% to $0.1402.
Nemaura Medical's board of directors and management team have made the strategic decision to accept Nasdaq's determination to delist Nemaura Medical and move to the OTC Markets.

Also Check This Out: Top 3 Industrials Stocks That Could Blast Off In Q1

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2% to $71.76 while gold traded down 1.5% at $2,042.10.

Silver traded down 3.2% to $23.19 on Wednesday while copper fell 1% to $3.84.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.1%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.8% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.2% The German DAX fell 1.4% French CAC 40 fell 1.9% while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dipped 1.5%.

German jobless rate rose to 5.9% in December from November's revised reading of 5.8%. The number of people registering as jobless in Spain fell by 1%, reaching 2.71 million for December.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly lower on Wednesday, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 0.85% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index gaining 0.17%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex, meanwhile, fell 0.75%.

The S&P Global Indian manufacturing PMI fell to 54.9 in December from 56.0 in the prior month. Australian CoreLogic Home Value Index increased 0.4% in December versus a 0.6% increase a month ago.

Economics

Mortgage applications in the U.S. declined by 10.7% in the week ending Dec. 29.

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