Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Initial Jobless Claims Continue To Decline

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded down 2.99% to 26184.22 while the NASDAQ fell 1.88% to 9832.44. The S&P also fell, dropping 2.52% to 3109.30.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 2,000,460 cases with around 112,920 deaths. Brazil confirmed a total of over 772,410 COVID-19 cases with 39,680 deaths, while Russia reported a total of at least 501,800 confirmed cases and 6,520 deaths. In total, there were at least 7,397,340 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 417,100 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer staples shares fell by just 1.1% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Craft Brew Alliance, Inc. BREW, up 2%, and Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. KDP, up 2%.

In trading on Thursday, real estate shares tumbled 4%.

Top Headline

Initial jobless claims declined from 1.9 million to 1.54 million in the first week of June, while continuing jobless claims fell from 21.27 million to 20.93 million, according to the Department of Labor. Economists had expected figures of 1.55 million and 20 million, respectively.

Equities Trading UP

Reata Pharmaceuticals, Inc. RETA shares shot up 23% to $160.98 after the company reported a $350 million strategic investment from Blackstone.

Shares of Wah Fu Education Group Limited WAFU got a boost, shooting 252% to $7.93 after gaining around 6% on Wednesday.

DarioHealth Corp. DRIO shares were also up, gaining 22% to $7.16 after the company reported two remote patient monitoring agreements.

Equities Trading DOWN

Jiayin Group Inc. JFIN shares tumbled 33% to $3.87 after the company reported downbeat Q1 results.

Shares of Mustang Bio, Inc. MBIO were down 28% to $3.29 after the company announced a 10.769 million share common stock offering at $3.25 per share.

TDH Holdings, Inc. PETZ was down, falling 28% to $1.5150.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 3.8% to $38.09, while gold traded up 1.1% to $1,739.60.

Silver traded up 1.5% Thursday to $18.06, while copper fell 1.1% to $2.628.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 2.2%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 2.9%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dropped 3%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 slipped 2.3%, French CAC 40 fell 2.3% and UK shares fell 2.1%.

Economics

In the first week of June, initial jobless claims declined from 1.9 million to 1.54 million, according to the Department of Labor.

The producer price index increased 0.4% in May, following a 1.3% drop in the earlier month.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is scheduled for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 8-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury will auction 30-year bonds at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Data on money supply for the latest week will be released at 4:30 p.m. ET.