Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Higher; Goldman Sachs Beats Q3 Expectations

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded up 0.80% to 35,190.31 while the NASDAQ rose 0.28% to 14,864.73. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.58% to 4,463.81.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 45,639,010 cases with around 741,890 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 34,037,590 cases and 451,840 deaths, while Brazil reported over 21,612,230 COVID-19 cases with 602,200 deaths. In total, there were at least 240,474,470 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,899,160 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Financials shares gained by 1.1% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included XP Inc. XP, up 6% and Mogo Inc. MOGO up 5%.

In trading on Friday, communication services shares fell 0.2%.

Top Headline

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GS reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter on Friday.

Goldman Sachs reported quarterly earnings of $14.93 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $10.11 per share. The bank reported quarterly revenue of $13.61 billion, versus analysts’ estimates of $11.67 billion.

 

Equities Trading UP

LM Funding America, Inc. LMFA shares shot up 43% to $4.91 after declining around 15% on Thursday. The company recently announced it purchased an additional 4,000 S19J Pro Antminer Machines for a price of $25.3 million to further expand the company's mining capabilities.

Shares of Jasper Therapeutics, Inc. JSPR got a boost, shooting 21% to $15.13 after dropping over 15% on Thursday.

Antelope Enterprise Holdings Limited AEHL shares were also up, gaining 19% to $3.29. Antelope Enterprise, earlier during the month, reported revenue growth of 25.9% year-over-year to RMB50.1 million ($7.7 million) for the first six months of FY21.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Duck Creek Technologies, Inc. DCT shares tumbled 25% to $34.52 after the company reported Q4 results and issued FY22 sales guidance below estimates. JP Morgan downgraded Duck Creek Technologies from Overweight to Neutral and announced a $50 price target.

Shares of The Very Good Food Company Inc. VGFC were down 21% to $1.8050 after the company priced 15 million unit offering at $2 per unit.

Siyata Mobile Inc. SYTA was down, falling 18% to $2.8301 after reporting Q2 results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.9% to $82.02, while gold traded down 0.8% to $1,783.60.

Silver traded down 0.6% Friday to $23.34 while copper rose 1.7% to $4.71.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.4%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.5% and the German DAX 30 gained 0.4%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.3%, French CAC 40 rose 0.4% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.6%.

The Eurozone trade surplus shrank to EUR 4.8 billion in August compared to EUR 14.0 billion in the year-ago period, while passenger car registrations dipped by 23.1% year-over-year to 718,598 thousand units in September.

Italy’s trade surplus shrank to EUR 1.316 billion in August from EUR 3.929 billion in the year-ago month, while annual inflation rate increased to 2.5% in September from 2% in August. French consumer price inflation rate rose to 2.2% year-over-year in September from a preliminary reading of 2.1%.
Economics

Retail sales rose 0.7 % in September, following a revised 0.9% growth in August.

The New York Empire State manufacturing index declined 15 points to a reading of 19.8 in October.

The price index for US imports rose 0.4% in September, while export prices rose 0.1% over a month ago in September.

US business inventories rose 0.6% for August.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index declined to 71.4 in October from 72.8 in September.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard is set to speak at 11:45 a.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams will speak at 12:20 p.m. ET.

The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week will be released at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Check out the full economic calendar here