Crude Oil Rises 2%; Tesla Shares Plunge After Downbeat Results

U.S. stocks traded slightly higher midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining around 0.2% on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.06% to 37,829.32 while the NASDAQ rose 0.22% to 15,515.62. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.26% to 4,881.28.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Communication services shares rose by 1.5% on Thursday.

In trading on Thursday, consumer discretionary shares fell by 1.4%.

Top Headline

Tesla, Inc. TSLA shares dipped more than 12% on Thursday after the company reported worse-than-expected fourth-quarter financial results.

Tesla reported fourth-quarter revenue of $25.17 billion, which was up 3% year-over-year. The revenue missed a Street consensus estimate of $25.62 billion, according to data from Benzinga Pro. The company reported earnings per share of 71 cents, which missed a Street consensus estimate of 74 cents per share.

Equities Trading UP

Vera Therapeutics, Inc. VERA shares shot up 40% to $23.87 after the company announced 72-week data from the OLE period of its Phase 2b ORIGIN clinical trial. Also, Oppenheimer initiated coverage on the stock with an Outperform rating and announced a $26 price target.

Shares of Processa Pharmaceuticals, Inc. PCSA got a boost, surging 120% to $4.5150 after the company announced the completion of the safety tolerability evaluation in its Phase 1b trial of Next Generation Capecitabine.

LAVA Therapeutics N.V. LVTX shares were also up, gaining 38% to $2.1401 after the company announced a clinical trial collaboration and supply agreement with Merck & Co. to evaluate LAVA-1207 in combination with KEYTRUDA.

Equities Trading DOWN

RedHill Biopharma Ltd. RDHL shares dropped 47% to $0.5680 after the company announced an $8 million registered direct offering.

Shares of Akoustis Technologies, Inc. AKTS were down 23% to $0.5401 after the company announced pricing of a public offering of $10 million of common stock.

Intelligent Bio Solutions Inc. INBS was down, falling 20% to $0.2354.
Intelligent Bio Solutions reported a 1-for-12 reverse stock split.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2% to $76.60 while gold traded down 0.1% at $2,013.50.

Silver traded down 0.15% to $22.855 on Thursday while copper fell 0.5% to $3.8670.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.30%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.03% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.58% The German DAX rose 0.10% French CAC 40 rose 0.11% while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.60%.

The European Central Bank kept interest rates unchanged during its recent meeting. The Ifo Business Climate indicator for Germany declined to 85.2 in January versus a revised reading of 86.3 in the prior month. Producer prices in Spain fell by 6.3% year-over-year in December, while manufacturing climate indicator in France came in unchanged at 99 for January.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly higher on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 0.03%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbing 1.96% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index gaining 3.03%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex, meanwhile, fell 0.51%.

Imports to Hong Kong jumped by 11.6% year-over-year to $446.3 billion in December, while exports from Hong Kong rose 11% year-over-year to $386.4 billion.

Economics

The US economy grew an annualized 3.3% in the fourth quarter, versus market estimates of a 2% rise, and compared to a 4.9% rate in the prior quarter.

U.S. initial jobless claims increased by 25,000 to 214,000 in the week ending Jan. 20.

The US trade deficit in goods narrowed to $88.5 billion in December versus a revised $89.3 billion in the prior month.

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index declined to -0.15 in December versus a revised 0.01 in the previous month.

Wholesale inventories in the U.S. increased by 0.4% month-over-month in December.

New orders for manufactured durable goods in the U.S. came in unchanged for December.

U.S. natural-gas supplies fell 326 billion cubic during the week ended Jan. 19, 2024, the EIA said.

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