Gold Gains 1%; Halliburton Posts Weak Q3 Results

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

The Dow traded up 0.01% to 43,731.14 while the NASDAQ rose 1.19% to 19,208.62. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.55% to 5,961.80.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer discretionary shares surged by 1.5% on Thursday.

In trading on Thursday, financials shares fell by 1.3%.

Top Headline

Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) reported worse-than-expected third-quarter EPS and sales.

HAL reported a third-quarter revenue decline of 1.8% year-over-year to $5.697 billion, missing the consensus of $5.828 billion. Adjusted EPS was 73 cents, down from 79 cents a year ago and below the consensus of 75 cents.

Equities Trading UP
                       

Equities Trading DOWN

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.3% to $71.46 while gold traded up 1.1% at $2,705.10.

Silver traded up 1.9% to $31.930 on Thursday, while copper rose 4.1% to $4.4185.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 gained 0.94%, Germany's DAX gained 2.07% and France's CAC 40 rose 1.07%. Spain's IBEX 35 Index rose 1.01%, while London's FTSE 100 rose 0.04%.

The Bank of England cut its Bank Rate by 25bps to 4.75% at its recent meeting. Retail sales in the Eurozone rose 0.5% month-over-month in September versus a revised 1.1% gain in August. The HCOB Eurozone construction PMI climbed to 43.0 in October from 42.1 in the previous month.

The S&P Global France construction PMI climbed to 42.2 in October from 37.9 in the prior month, while German construction PMI declined to 40.2 in October from 41.7 in the previous month.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Thursday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 falling 0.25%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gaining 2.02%, China's Shanghai Composite Index gaining 2.57% and India's BSE Sensex falling 1.04%.

China’s trade surplus widened to $95.27 billion in October from $56.13 billion in the year-ago period. Foreign exchange reserves in Singapore increased to SGD 507.6 billion in October from SGD 499.7 billion in the prior month.

Economics

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