Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Rises 40 Points; Meredith Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.12% to 34,805 while the NASDAQ fell 0.13% to 15,033.02. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.12% to 4,454.25.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 42,672,290 cases with around 684,350 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 33,594,800 cases and 446,360 deaths, while Brazil reported over 21,308,170 COVID-19 cases with 592,960 deaths. In total, there were at least 230,637,880 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,729,300 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares jumped 1% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Viking Energy Group, Inc. VKIN, up 11% and Mammoth Energy Services, Inc. TUSK up 9%.

In trading on Friday, real estate shares fell 1%.

Top Headline

On Thursday, Nike Inc NKE reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter, while sales missed expectations. The company also lowered its sales forecast for the full year.

Equities Trading UP

Aehr Test Systems AEHR shares shot up 31% to $15.40 after the company reported better-than-expected Q1 results. The company also said it sees FY21 revenue of $50 million.

Shares of Unique Fabricating, Inc. UFAB got a boost, shooting 29% to $3.2617. Form 4 filings from late Thursday showed stock purchases from multiple company’s Directors.

Meredith Corporation MDP shares were also up, gaining 25% to $56.06. IAC/InterActiveCorp is in advanced talks to acquire magazine publisher Meredith in a deal valued at over $2.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Canaan Inc. CAN shares tumbled 23% to $5.96 amid a decrease in the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum after China's Central Bank banned all crypto transactions and vowed to stop illegal crypto mining. The company’s board recently approved a $20 million share buyback program worth outstanding ADS, each representing 15 Class A shares over the next 12 months starting from September 20.

Shares of Helbiz, Inc. HLBZ were down 17% to $19.08. Helbiz announced its official arrival in California.

Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. ONTX was down, falling 22% to $3.9610. Onconova Therapeutics priced an underwritten public offering of 5 million shares at $4.20 for gross proceeds of $21 million.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.8% to $73.91, while gold traded down 0.1% to $1,747.60.

Silver traded down 1.5% Friday to $22.345 while copper rose 1% to $4.2730.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 0.90%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.04% and the German DAX 30 dropped 0.72%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.38%, French CAC 40 fell 0.95% and Italy’s FTSE MIB declined 0.43%.

The United Kingdom’s GfK consumer confidence index fell to -13 for the month of September from -8 a month ago. Manufacturing confidence in Italy dropped to 113 in September from a revised level of 113.2 in August, while consumer confidence climbed to 119.6 from 116.2. The Ifo business climate indicator for Germany fell to 98.8 in September versus a revised reading of 99.6 in August.

Economics

New home sales surged 1.5% to an annual rate of 740,000 in August.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs climbed by 10 to 421 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.

Check out the full economic calendar here