US Stocks Edge Lower; FedEx Posts Upbeat Earnings

U.S. stocks traded slightly lower this morning. Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded down 0.06% to 39,758.88 while the NASDAQ fell 0.10% to 16,385.60. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.01% to 5,241.33.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Utilities shares jumped by 0.5% on Friday.

In trading on Friday, consumer discretionary shares fell by 0.9%.

Top Headline

FedEx Corporation FDX reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter and authorized a new $5 billion share repurchase program on Thursday.

FedEx reported quarterly earnings of $3.86 per share which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $3.45 by 11.88% and represents a 13.2% increase over earnings of $3.41 per share from the same period last year. Quarterly sales came in at $21.7 billion, missing the analyst consensus estimate of $22.04 billion, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Equities Trading UP

Murano Global Investments PLC MRNO shares shot up 152% to $24.39 after falling 46% on Thursday.

Shares of Nova LifeStyle, Inc. NVFY got a boost, surging 106% to $3.80 after gaining around 22% on Thursday.

BIOLASE, Inc. BIOL shares were also up, gaining 63% to $0.2452 after the company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings results.

Equities Trading DOWN

BYND Cannasoft Enterprises Inc. BCAN shares dropped 38% to $2.25. BYND Cannasoft said that the previously announced 1-for-190 reverse stock split of its outstanding shares of common stock has been made effective today, March 22, 2024.

Shares of Sintx Technologies, Inc. SINT were down 32% to $0.0922 after the company announced a proposed public offering of common stock.

Ispire Technology Inc. ISPR was down, falling 31% to $5.64 after the company announced the pricing of its public offering of 2.05 million shares of common stock at $6.00 per share.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.1% to $81.13 while gold traded down 0.8% at $2,168.00.

Silver traded down 1% to $24.755 on Friday, while copper fell 1.1% to $4.0135.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.1%, London’s FTSE 100 jumped 0.8% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.7% The German DAX rose 0.1% French CAC 40 fell 0.1% while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.1%.

The Ifo Business Climate indicator for Germany climbed to 87.8 in March from February's revised reading of 85.7. German import prices declined 5.9% year-over-year in January.

Retail sales volumes in the UK came in unchanged for February, while UK’s GfK Consumer Confidence indicator came in flat at -21 in March.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 0.18%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 2.16%, China’s Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.95% and India’s S&P BSE Sensex gaining 0.26%.

Foreign direct investment into China dipped by 19.9% year-over-year to CNY 215.1 billion during the first two months of the year. The annual inflation rate in Japan accelerated to 2.8% in February from 2.2% a month ago.

Economics

The Baker Hughes rig count report for the recent week will be released at 1:00 p.m. ET.

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