Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Up 1.5%; Kandi Technologies Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.24 percent to 25,954.13 while the NASDAQ declined 0.05 percent to 7,483.43. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.18 percent to 2,784.70.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Wednesday afternoon, the materials shares climbed 2 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Lithium Americas Corp. LAC up 9 percent, and Taseko Mines Limited TGB up 8 percent.

In trading on Wednesday, real estate shares fell 0.6 percent.

Top Headline

CVS Health Corp CVS issued weak earnings forecast for FY19. The company reported upbeat earnings for its fourth quarter, while sales missed view.

CVS Health said it earned $2.14 per share in the fourth quarter on revenue of $54.42 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $2.05 per share and revenue of $54.58 billion.

CVS Health expects FY19 adjusted earnings of $6.68 to $6.88 per share, versus analysts’ estimates of $7.41 per share.

Equities Trading UP

ARCA biopharma, Inc. ABIO shares got a boost, shooting up 48 percent to $0.5711 after the company announced an agreement with the FDA for a single Phase 3 clinical trial to support approval for its Cardiovascular drug.

Shares of Kandi Technologies Group, Inc. KNDI shot up 42 percent to $8.43. The Chinese joint venture company announced Wednesday the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved two purely electric models for importation and registration. Kandi subsidiary SC Autosports will pioneer the launch of Model EX3 and Model K22 in the U.S. market.

LeMaitre Vascular, Inc. LMAT shares were also up, gaining 24 percent to $31.10 after the company posted upbeat Q4 results and issued a strong FY19 outlook.

Equities Trading DOWN

Ovid Therapeutics Inc. OVID shares dropped 32 percent to $1.76 after reporting pricing of $30 million of securities in concurrent public offerings of common and preferred stock.

Shares of Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. SNNA were down 21 percent to $2.36 after the company priced an 8 million share stock offering at $2.50 per share.

Aceto Corporation ACET was down, falling around 61 percent to $0.4003 after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy relief and announced the proposed sale of its chemicals business for $338 million.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.5 percent to $56.92 while gold traded up 0.2 percent to $1,347.40.

Silver traded up 1.3 percent Wednesday to $16.28, while copper rose 1.6 percent to $2.924.

Eurozone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.67 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.49 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.38 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 0.82 percent, and the French CAC 40 rose 0.69 percent while U.K. shares rose 0.69 percent.

Economics

The Federal Open Market Committee released minutes of its latest meeting.

Data on farm prices for December will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.