Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Nasdaq Drops 150 Points; Quidel Shares Spike Higher

US stocks remained lower toward the end of trading, with the Nasdaq dropping 150 points on Friday.

The Dow traded down 0.39% to 34,178.62 while the NASDAQ fell 1.1% to 13,567. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.55% to 4,356.37.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer staples shares slipped by just 0.3% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Local Bounti Corporation LOCL, up 3% and Landec Corporation LNDC up 2%.

In trading on Friday, information technology shares tumbled by 1.4%.

Top Headline

Deere & Company DE reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter and raised profit guidance.

Deere posted quarterly earnings of $2.92 per share, beating market estimates of $2.26 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $9.57 billion, versus expectations of $8.19 billion.

Deere boosted its FY22 net income guidance from $6.5 billion-$7 billion to $6.7 billion-$7.1 billion.

Equities Trading UP

T2 Biosystems, Inc. TTOO shares shot up 14% to $0.4579 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 EPS and sales results.

Shares of Quidel Corporation QDEL got a boost, shooting 11% to $98.21 after reporting strong Q4 results.

AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. AMN shares were also up, gaining 10% to $102.96 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 EPS and sales results. The company also issued Q1 sales guidance above analyst estimates and added $300 million to its buyback.

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Equities Trading DOWN

Guardion Health Sciences, Inc. GHSI shares tumbled 45% to $0.2029. Guardion Health Sciences priced its 37 million share offering for gross proceeds $11.1 million.

Shares of Redfin Corporation RDFN were down 25% to $21.58 after the company reported Q4 earnings results and issued Q1 sales guidance. RBC Capital downgraded Redfin from Outperform to Sector Perform and lowered the price target from $60 to $23.

Doma Holdings Inc. DOMA was down, falling 30% to $2.3601 after the company reported Q4 earnings results.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.7% to $91.14, while gold traded down 0.2% to $1,898.20.

Silver traded up 0.4% Friday to $ 23.97 while copper fell 0.1% to $4.5215.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.81%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.32%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.94%. The German DAX fell 1.47%, French CAC 40 dropped 0.25% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.61%.

The Euro Area current account surplus shrank to EUR 35.6 billion in December from EUR 42.3 billion in the year-ago month. Retail sales in the UK rose 1.9% from a month earlier in January

French consumer price inflation rate was confirmed at 2.9% year-over-year in January, while unemployment rate in the country dropped to 7.4% in the fourth quarter from a revised 8.0% in the prior period.

Economics

U.S. existing home increased 6.7% to an annual rate of 6.5 million in January.

The index of leading economic indicators fell 0.3% for January.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs rose by 4 to 520 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.

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COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 79,915,730 cases with around 955,490 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 42,780,230 cases and 510,930 deaths, while Brazil reported over 27,941,470 COVID-19 cases with 641,990 deaths. In total, there were at least 420,751,330 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,883,740 deaths.