Dow Gains 100 Points; Victoria's Secret Shares Plunge

U.S. stocks traded higher midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining over 1% on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.26% to 38,762.00 while the NASDAQ rose 1.38% to 16,253.50. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.91% to 5,151.16.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Materials shares jumped by 1.6% on Thursday.

In trading on Thursday, real estate shares rose by just 0.2%.

Top Headline

BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings Inc BJ reported downbeat sales for its fourth quarter.

BJ’s Wholesale reported fourth-quarter FY23 sales growth of 8.7% year-on-year to $5.36 billion, missing the analyst consensus of $5.39 billion. Adjusted EPS of $1.11 beat the analyst consensus estimate of $1.06.

Equities Trading UP

Lytus Technologies Holdings PTV. Ltd. LYT shares shot up 343% to $10.24 after the company announced the launch of Lytus Cloud.

Shares of CERo Therapeutics Holdings, Inc. CERO got a boost, surging 105% to $5.24. CERo Therapeutics announced the publication in clinical cancer research a paper titled "Therapeutic Targeting of TIM-4-L With Engineered T CellsFor Acute Myeloid Leukemia."

Brera Holdings PLC BREA shares were also up, gaining 109% to $2.1299 after the company announced that its Executive Chairman, Daniel McClory, acquired a majority stake in the company.

Equities Trading DOWN

Victoria's Secret & Co. VSCO shares dropped 30% to $17.96 after reporting fourth-quarter results.

Shares of Methode Electronics, Inc. MEI were down 27% to $15.28 following weak quarterly results.

Avid Bioservices, Inc. CDMO was down, falling 27% to $6.38 after the company reported certain preliminary third-quarter financial results and announced a proposed $160 million private placement of convertible notes.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.1% to $79.19 while gold traded up 0.1% at $2,160.80.

Silver traded up 0.6% to $24.64 on Thursday while copper rose 1.2% to $3.9210.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 1.05%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.27% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 1.31% The German DAX gained 0.70% French CAC 40 rose 0.79% while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.26%.
The Halifax House Price Index in the UK increased by 1.7% year-over-year in February. Factory orders in Germany dipped 11.3% month-over-month in January.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly lower on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 falling 1.23%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dipping 1.27%, China’s Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.41% and India’s S&P BSE Sensex gaining 0.05%.

Chinese trade surplus widened to $125.16 billion in January-February combined compared to $103.8 billion in the year-ago period. Reserve assets in Japan declined to $1.281 trillion in February versus $1.292 trillion a month ago, while Japan’s average cash earnings rose by 2% year-over-year in January.

Economics

U.S. nonfarm business sector labor productivity rose by 3.2% in the fourth versus a revised 4.9% increase in the third quarter.

Unit labor costs rose an annualized 0.4% in the fourth quarter compared to a 1.1% decline in the prior period.

U.S. initial jobless claims came in unchanged at 217,000 in the latest week, higher than market estimates of 215,000.

U.S.-based companies announced plans to lower 84,638 jobs in February.

The US reported a trade gap of $67.4 billion in January compared to revised $63.5 billion gap in the prior month.

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