Mid-Day Market Update: Crude Oil Rises 2.5%; Energy Shares Spike

Midway through trading Friday, the Dow traded down 0.09% to 31,403.07, while the NASDAQ rose 0.17% to 14,049.14 and the S&P gained 0.14% to 3,921.72.

Leading and Lagging Sectors
Energy shares climbed 1.32% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Peabody Energy Corp. BTU, up 14%, and Nordic American Tanker Ltd NAT, up 12%.

In trading on Friday, utilities shares fell 0.7%.

Top Headline
Ameren Corp AEE announced a 6.8% hike in its quarterly cash dividend, taking the payout to 55 cents per share.

This translates to an annualized equivalent dividend rate of $2.20 per share, versus the American power company’s prior rate of $2.06 per share.
 

Equities Trading UP
Artelo Biosciences, Inc. ARTL shares jumped 96.94% to $6.81, after analysts at Ladenburg initiated coverage of the company with a Buy rating and a price target of $7.

Shares of HubSpot, Inc. HUBS rose 17.46% to $507.12, after the company announced its fourth quarter 2020 non-GAAP earnings at $0.40 per share, ahead of the consensus expectations.

loanDepot, Inc’s LDI shares gained 24.68% to $27.43. The company announced that it will release its fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings on February 18, 2021 via a conference call and live webcast at 11:00 a.m. E.T.

Equities Trading DOWN
Shares of Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. NUS fell 4.08% to $51.43, despite the company having reported fourth quarter 2020 earnings of $1.40 per share, well ahead of the consensus expectations.

Tufin Software Technologies Ltd’s TUFN stock declined by 19.02% to $14.99. The company reported better than anticipated loss per share and revenue for the fourth quarter 2020.

SQZ Biotechnologies Co. SQZ shares fell 16.86% to $18.30. The company announced the pricing of its underwritten public offering of 3,000,000 shares of common stock $20.00 per share.

Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 2.5% to $59.70, while gold traded down 0.14% to $1,824.30.
Silver traded higher 1.3% Friday to $27.40, while copper rose 0.2% to $3.78.

Euro zone

European shares traded higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.64%, the Spanish Ibex Index gained 0.22%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.44%. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 0.06%, and the French CAC 40 climbed 0.60% while UK shares rose 0.94%
 

Economics
San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly will speak in Los Angeles, California at 3:30 p.m. ET.