Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Jumps 230 Points; Kohl's Shares Plummet

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.69% to 34,129 while the NASDAQ rose 1.74% to 13,531.39. The S&P also rose, gaining 1.11% to 4,161.55.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 32,997,870 cases with around 587,220 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 25,496,330 cases and 283,240 deaths, while Brazil reported over 15,732,830 COVID-19 cases with 439,050 deaths. In total, there were at least 164,284,760 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 3,406,260 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares climbed 2% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Lightspeed POS Inc. LSPD, up 14%, and Intrusion Inc. INTZ, up 13%.

In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell 0.8%.

Top Headline

Hormel Foods Corporation HRL reported stronger-than-expected results for its second quarter.

Hormel Foods reported quarterly adjusted earnings of $0.42 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.41 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $2.60 billion, exceeding market views of $2.42 billion.

Hormel Foods said it expects FY21 earnings of $1.70 to $1.82 per share on sales of $10.2 billion to $10.8 billion.

Equities Trading UP

BBQ Holdings, Inc. BBQ shares shot up 20% to $14.75 after the company reported a rise in quarterly sales.

Shares of PDS Biotechnology Corporation PDSB got a boost, shooting 20% to $6.87 after the company announced the publication of an abstract by the American Society of Clinical Oncology summarizing interim data from the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-led Phase 2 trial evaluating a combination of PDS0101, M9241, and bintrafusp alfa in patients with HPV 16+ relapsed or refractory advanced cancer.

Youdao, Inc. DAO shares were also up, gaining 14% to $25.47 after Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock from Equal-Weight to Overweight and announced a price target of $30 per share.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Black Diamond Therapeutics, Inc. BDTX shares tumbled 36% to $14.25 after the company reported initial data from the Phase 1 dose-escalation portion of the Phase 1/2 MasterKey-01 trial evaluating BDTX-189 in patients with advanced solid tumors.

Shares of Kohl's Corporation KSS were down 11% to $54.03 despite the company better-than-expected Q1 results and raised FY21 outlook.

Lordstown Motors Corp. RIDE was down, falling 13% to $9.93 after Wolfe Research downgraded the stock from Peer Perform to Underperform and lowered its price target from $18 to $1.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.6% to $62.34, while gold traded up 0.1% to $1,882.30.

Silver traded up 0.2% Thursday to $28.07 while copper fell 0.5% to $4.5545.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 1.27%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.59% and the German DAX 30 gained 1.7%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 gained 1%, French CAC 40 gained 1.29% and Italy’s FTSE MIB rose 0.88%.

The Eurozone current account surplus increased to EUR 31.0 billion in March versus EUR 24.6 billion in the year-ago month. Construction output in Italy jumped 74.5% year-over-year in March following a 3.5% increase in the prior month, while German producer prices rose 5.2% year-over-year in April.

Economics

US initial jobless claims fell by 34 thousand to 444 thousand during the week ending May 15.

The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index dropped to 31.5 in May from around 50 year high of 50.2 in the previous month.

The index of leading economic indicators rose 1.6% for April.

US natural gas supplies rose 71 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan is set to speak at 6:05 p.m. ET.

Check out the full economic calendar here