U.S. stocks traded mostly lower this morning, with the Nasdaq Composite falling around 300 points on Wednesday.

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded down 0.10% to 40,914.80 while the NASDAQ fell 1.63% to 18,208.05. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.98% to 5,611.77                                 .

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares jumped by 0.5% on Wednesday.

In trading on Wednesday, information technology shares fell by 2.3%.

Top Headline

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings on Wednesday.

The company posted adjusted EPS of $2.82, up 10.2% year-over-year, beating the consensus of $2.70. The pharma giant reported sales of $22.45 billion, up 4.3% year-over-year, beating the consensus of $22.31 billion.

Johnson & Johnson raised fiscal year 2024 operational sales guidance to $89.2 billion-$89.6 billion versus prior guidance of $88.7 billion-$89.1 billion.

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Equities Trading DOWN

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.6% to $81.23 while gold traded up 0.2% at $2,473.50.

Silver traded down 1% to $31.155 on Wednesday, while copper fell 0.5% to $4.4285.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 fell 0.6%, Germany's DAX fell 0.6% and France's CAC 40 fell 0.5%. Spain's IBEX 35 Index fell 0.2%, while London's FTSE 100 fell 0.1%.

Annual inflation rate in the Eurozone eased to 2.5% in June from 2.6% in May. French current account deficit shrank to EUR 3.1 billion in May versus a revised EUR 3.5 billion in the prior month.

U.K. producer prices increased 1.4% year-over-year in June following a 1.7% rise in the prior month, while annual inflation rate came in steady at 2% in June.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Wednesday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 falling 0.43%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gaining 0.06% and China's Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.45%.

Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports fell by 8.7% year-over-year in June following a revised 0.7% decline in May.

Economics

• U.S. mortgage applications climbed by 3.9% during the third week of July.
• U.S. housing starts increased by 3% from the prior month to an annualized rate of 1,314,000 in June compared to a revised 4.6% fall a month ago.
• Building permits in the U.S. climbed by 3.4% to an annual rate of 1.446 million in June.

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