Mid-Afternoon Market Update: U.S. Stocks Turn Lower; Dow Falls Over 100 Points

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded down 0.45% to 25,962.09 while the NASDAQ fell 0.12% to 9,930.89. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.42% to 3,102.16.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 2,191,200 cases with around 118,430 deaths. Brazil confirmed a total of over 978,140 COVID-19 cases with 47,740 deaths, while Russia reported a total of at least 568,290 confirmed cases and 7,830 deaths. In total, there were at least 8,509,390 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 454,380 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares climbed 0.7% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Celldex Therapeutics, Inc. CLDX, up 25%, and Strongbridge Biopharma plc SBBP, up 25%.

In trading on Friday, industrial shares fell 1%.

Top Headline

Jabil Inc JBL reported better-than-expected results for its third quarter.

Jabil reported quarterly earnings of $0.37 per share on Friday, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $0.32. The company reported quarterly sales of $6.30 billion, which surpassed the consensus estimate of $5.57 billion.

Jabil said it expects Q4 adjusted earnings of $0.46 to $0.86 per share on sales of $5.8 billion to $6.6 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Cohen & Company Inc. COHN shares shot up 98% to $15.26 after President Daniel Cohen disclosed a 74.61% stake in the company.

Shares of Pintec Technology Holdings Limited PT got a boost, shooting 25% to $1.3835 after the company reported that it has expanded its cooperation with China Telecom Bestpay to provide intelligent handset installment services to Bestpay’s government and enterprise customers.

Immuron Limited IMRN shares were also up, gaining 24% to $9.58 after the company announced a partnership with CSIRO to produce new oral therapeutic for clinical evaluation by the US Department of Defense.

Equities Trading DOWN

BeyondSpring Inc. BYSI shares tumbled 19% to $13.52 after the company priced its public offering of 1,930,000 ordinary shares at $13.00 per share.

Shares of Obalon Therapeutics, Inc. OBLN were down 22% to $0.8357 following Q1 results. Obalon Therapeutics posted a Q1 loss of $0.68 per share on sales of $780,000.

Yatra Online, Inc. YTRA was down, falling 20% to $0.7716 after the company priced 12.5 million share public offering of ordinary shares at $0.80 per share.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded up 2.3% to $39.73, while gold traded up 1.3% to $1,753.50.

Silver traded up 2% Friday to $17.85, while copper rose 0.9% to $2.611.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.56%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.32%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.68%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 climbed 0.4%, French CAC 40 climbed 0.42% and UK shares rose 1.1%.

Economics

The US current account deficit shrank by $0.1 billion to $104.2 billion in the first quarter, versus analysts’ estimates of a $103 billion deficit.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs slipped by 10 to 189 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.