Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Nasdaq Rises 75 Points; Palo Alto Networks Shares Jump On Upbeat Earnings

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.26% to 35,427.95 while the NASDAQ rose 0.50% to 15,018.26. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.25% to 4,490.82.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 37,941,620 cases with around 629,560 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 32,474,770 cases and 435,110 deaths, while Brazil reported over 20,583,990 COVID-19 cases with 574,840 deaths. In total, there were at least 212,639,390 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,443,760 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares rose 1.7% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Gevo, Inc. GEVO, up 14% and Aemetis, Inc. AMTX up 13%.

In trading on Tuesday, real estate fell 0.7%.

Top Headline

Best Buy Co., Inc. BBY reported better-than-expected results for its second quarter.

Best Buy posted quarterly adjusted earnings of $2.98 per share, exceeding market estimates of $1.85 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $11.85 billion, versus estimates of $11.49 billion.

Best Buy sees Q3 enterprise revenue of $11.4 billion-$11.6 billion and FY22 enterprise revenue of $51 billion-$52 billion. The company boosted full-year enterprise comparable sales growth outlook to a range of 9% to 11%.

Equities Trading UP

Triple-S Management Corporation GTS shares shot up 45% to $35.16. GuideWell Mutual Holding Corporation, parent of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida Inc, will acquire Triple-S Management for an equity value of approximately $900 million.

Shares of SkyWater Technology, Inc. SKYT got a boost, shooting 25% to $25.72. SkyWater and Rockley Photonics announced expansion of relationship to enable wafer back-end-of-line processing for wearable health sensors.

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. PANW shares were also up, gaining 19% to $445.04 after the company reported better-than-expected results for its fourth quarter and issued strong Q1 revenue guidance. The company also announced, subsequent to quarter end, it authorized an additional $676.1 million for share repurchase.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Theravance Biopharma, Inc. TBPH shares tumbled 34% to $9.30 after the company announced the Phase 2b dose-finding induction study of izencitinib in the treatment of ulcerative colitis did not meet the primary endpoint of change in the total Mayo score or the key secondary endpoint of clinical remission at week eight relative to placebo. A small dose-dependent increase in clinical response measured by the adapted Mayo score was driven by a reduction in rectal bleeding.

Shares of Greenpro Capital Corp. GRNQ were down 10% to $0.9171 after jumping 34% on Monday. Greenpro Capital, last week, announced its Angkasa-X signed a MOU with Silkwave Holdings to form a joint venture partnership to develop a GEO-LEO integrated satellite Network and services platform.

ImmuCell Corporation ICCC was down, falling 8% to $8.36. ImmuCell said the FDA has issued a Technical Section Incomplete Letter covering Chemistry, Manufacturing And Controls (CMC) Technical Section for Re-Tain.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2.9% to $67.52, while gold traded up 0.1% to $1,807.50.

Silver traded up 1.1% Tuesday to $23.925 while copper rose 0.6% to $4.2605.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 slipped 0.02%, the Spanish Ibex Index dropped 0.22% and the German DAX 30 gained 0.33%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.24%, French CAC 40 fell 0.28% and Italy’s FTSE MIB fell 0.07%.

The German economy grew 1.6% on quarter during the second quarter versus a revised 2% contraction in the first three months of the year.

Economics

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index rose 15.9% year-over-year during the first three weeks of August.

New home sales rose 1% to an annual rate of 708,000.

The Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index fell to 9 in August from 27 in July.

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

Check out the full economic calendar here