Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Surges 160 Points; Wolfspeed Shares Gain After Q1 Results

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.45% to 35,651.09 while the NASDAQ rose 1.21% to 15,420.51. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.83% to 4,589.40.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 46,597,000 cases with around 761,850 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 34,231,800 cases and 456,410 deaths, while Brazil reported over 21,766,160 COVID-19 cases with 606,720 deaths. In total, there were at least 245,904,790 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,990,070 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer discretionary shares gained by 1.4% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Lucid Group, Inc. LCID, up 32% and Overstock.com, Inc. OSTK up 24%.

In trading on Thursday, consumer staples shares rose by just 0.1%.

Top Headline

Caterpillar Inc. CAT reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter.

Caterpillar reported quarterly adjusted earnings of $2.66 per share, exceeding analysts’ estimates of $2.20 per share. The company’s sales came in at $12.40 billion, versus expectations of $12.48 billion.

Equities Trading UP

HCW Biologics Inc. HCWB shares shot up 79% to $5.22 after the company announced that it has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to proceed to evaluate its lead drug candidate, HCW9218, in a first-in-human Phase 1b clinical trial in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.

Shares of Wolfspeed, Inc. WOLF got a boost, shooting 32% to $119.60 after the company reported better-than-expected Q1 results and issued Q2 guidance above estimates.

InflaRx N.V. IFRX shares were also up, gaining 45% to $4.1501. Raymond James upgraded InflaRx from Outperform to Strong Buy and announced a $14 price target.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Rafael Holdings, Inc. RFL shares tumbled 74% to $7.81. Rafael Holdings’ Rafael Pharmaceuticals Inc announced that the AVENGER 500 Phase 3 trial for CPI-613 (devimistat) did not meet its primary endpoint of significant improvement in overall survival in pancreatic cancer patients.

Shares of CohBar, Inc. CWBR were down 36% to $0.5781 after the company reported pricing of $15.0 million public offering of common stock and warrants.

Brickell Biotech, Inc. BBI was down, falling 26% to $0.3939 after the company priced its underwritten public offering of 26,316,000 shares of its common stock at $0.38 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.2% to $82.54, while gold traded up 0.2% to $1,802.70.

Silver traded down 0.3% Thursday to $24.125 while copper rose 1.1% to $4.4395.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.24%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.6% and the German DAX 30 declined 0.06%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.05%, French CAC 40 rose 0.75% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.31%.

Manufacturing confidence in Italy rose to 114.9 in October from a revised 113.2 in September, while consumer confidence fell to 118.4 from 119.6. UK car production dipped 41.5% year-over-year to 67,149 in September. Spain's annual inflation rate surged to 5.5% in October from 4.0% a month ago, while unemployment rate declined to 14.57% in the third quarter from 15.26%. The unemployment rate in Germany came in unchanged at 3.4% in September.

Economics

The US economy expanded an annualized rate of 2% on quarter in the third quarter.

US initial jobless claims dropped to a fresh 19-month low of 281,000 in the week ending October 23rd.

The pending home sales index fell 2.3% for September.

US natural gas supplies climbed 87 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

The Kansas City Fed's manufacturing production index climbed to 25 in October from 10 in the earlier month.

Check out the full economic calendar here