Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Surges 500 Points; Piedmont Lithium Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Monday, the Dow traded up 1.85% to 27,676.98 while the NASDAQ rose 1.51% to 11,078.09. The S&P also rose, gaining 1.71% to 3,354.84.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 7,116,450 cases with around 204,760 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 6,074,700 confirmed cases and 95,540 deaths, while Brazil reported over 4,732,300 COVID-19 cases with 141,740 deaths. In total, there were at least 33,137,740 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 998,370 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares jumped 3.3% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included WPX Energy, Inc. WPX, up 17%, and Centennial Resource Development, Inc. CDEV, up 14%.

In trading on Monday, health care shares rose by just 0.9%.

Top Headline

Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. CALM reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter.

Cal-Maine Foods reported quarterly loss of $0.40 per share, exceeding analysts’ estimates for a loss of $0.53 per share. The company reported sales of $292.78 million, surpassing expectations of $284.08 million.

Equities Trading UP

Piedmont Lithium Limited PLL shares shot up 324% to $46.69 after the company announced it signed a sales agreement with Tesla. Piedmont Lithium is a lithium-based company focused on the development of its Piedmont Lithium Project in North Carolina.

Shares of Ambow Education Holding Ltd. AMBO got a boost, shooting 91% to $3.45 after the company announced it expanded its strategic partnership with Amazon in a digital professional education, training and certification.

Perceptron, Inc. PRCP shares were also up, gaining 66% to $6.80 after the company announced it would be acquired for $7 per share.

Equities Trading DOWN

Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc AQST shares tumbled 31% to $5.23 after the company late Friday received a Complete Response Letter from the FDA for Libervant buccal film indicating the application cannot be approved in its current form.

Shares of Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. INO were down 27% to $12.38 following an adverse development in its coronavirus vaccine program. The company said the FDA has imposed a partial clinical hold on the planned Phase 2/3 trial of INO-4800 – its DNA vaccine against the novel coronavirus. The partial clinical hold also applied to the company's Cellectra 2000 delivery device to be used in the trial.

Eiger BioPharmaceuticals, Inc. EIGR was down, falling 14% to $8.46 after the company reported results of investigator sponsored study in outpatients with mild and uncomplicated COVID-19.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.9% to $2.9895, while gold traded up 0.7% to $1,879.60.

Silver traded up 1.9% Monday to $23.530 while copper rose 0.6% to $2.9895.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 surged 2.22%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 2.46%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 2.47%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 climbed 3.22%, French CAC 40 rose 2.40% and London’s FTSE 100 gained 1.46%.

Economics

The Dallas Fed manufacturing index rose 5.6 points to a reading of 13.6 in September.