Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Jumps 475 Points; Intercept Pharmaceuticals Shares Slide

Toward the end of trading Monday, the Dow traded up 1.9% to 25,490 while the NASDAQ rose 0.81% to 9,836.65. The S&P also rose, gaining 1.07% to 3,041.17.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 2,549,060 cases with around 125,800 deaths. Brazil confirmed a total of over 1,344,140 COVID-19 cases with 57,620 deaths, while Russia reported a total of at least 640,240 confirmed cases and 9,150 deaths. In total, there were at least 10,154,980 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 502,040 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Industrial shares climbed 2.7% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Gencor Industries, Inc. GENC, up 14%, and Plug Power Inc. PLUG, up 20%.

In trading on Monday, health care shares rose by just 0.6%.

Top Headline

Coty Inc. COTY agreed to acquire a 20% stake in Kim Kardashian West's cosmetics line.

The New York-based cosmetics veteran paid $200 million for the stake, valuing the brand KKW at $1 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Landcadia Holdings II, Inc. LCA shares shot up 38% to $13.94 after the special purpose acquisition company acquired Golden Nugget Online Gaming.

Shares of BioHiTech Global, Inc. BHTG got a boost, shooting 59% to $2.62 amid chatter the company's aerosol product can kill coronavirus.

Ideanomics, Inc. IDEX shares were also up, gaining 41% to $2.06 after the company disclosed that its Mobile Energy Global (MEG) subsidiary, has completed delivery of multiple orders for a total of 117 units.

Equities Trading DOWN

TravelCenters of America Inc. TA shares tumbled 23% to $16.83 after announcing a $75 million common stock offering.

Shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ICPT were down 40% to $46.67 on the back of an FDA rejection of its lead non-alcoholic steatohepatitis drug. Intercept said the FDA handed down a complete response letter related to its NDA for obeticholic acid, which is being evaluated as a treatment option for fibrosis due to NASH. The company noted that the FDA said the predicted benefit of the drug — based on a surrogate histopathologic endpoint —remains uncertain, and does not sufficiently outweigh the potential risks to support accelerated approval. Oppenheimer and Wells Fargo downgraded the stock.

Heron Therapeutics, Inc. HRTX was down, falling 27% to $14.48 after the FDA said it cannot approve the company's new drug application for HTX-011 without additional information.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 3% to $39.64, while gold traded up 0.1% to $1,781.10.

Silver traded down 0.5% Monday to $17.945, while copper rose 1.4% to $2.695.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.44%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.39%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 1.69%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 gained 1.18%, French CAC 40 gained 0.73% and UK shares rose 1.08%.

Economics

U.S. pending home sales climbed 44.3% in May, following a 21.8% drop in April.

The Dallas Fed manufacturing index climbed to -6.1 in June, versus a prior reading of -49.2.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams will speak at 3:00 p.m. ET.