Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 1.27% to 34,453.32 while the NASDAQ fell 0.01% to 15,252.20. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.76% to 4,547.40.
The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 49,573,120 cases with around 805,000 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 34,606,540 cases and 469,720 deaths, while Brazil reported over 22,105,870 COVID-19 cases with 615,020 deaths. In total, there were at least 263,915,360 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,245,540 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Leading and Lagging Sectors
Financials shares climbed 2.1% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included CNFinance Holdings Limited CNF, up 8% and eHealth, Inc. EHTH up 8%.
In trading on Thursday, information technology shares fell 0.3%.
Top Headline
Dollar General Corporation DG reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter on Thursday.
Dollar General reported quarterly earnings of $2.08 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $2.01 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $8.50 billion, versus expectations of $8.49 billion.
Dollar General said it sees FY21 earnings of $9.90 to $10.20 per share.
Equities Trading UP
Express, Inc. EXPR shares shot up 28% to $4.33 after the company posted better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter.
Shares of Biofrontera Inc. BFRI got a boost, shooting 30% to $5.63. Biofrontera announced Notice of Allowance for U.S. patent titled 'Illumination for Photodynamic Therapy.'
Phunware, Inc. PHUN shares were also up, gaining 13% to $3.68 in sympathy with Digital World acquisition. Traders view Phunware as potential play on digital world amid May 2020 article that highlighted Phunware partnership with former Trump campaign.
Check out these big movers of the day
Equities Trading DOWN
Kirkland's, Inc. KIRK shares tumbled 29% to $14.64 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 results.
Shares of Context Therapeutics Inc. CNTX were down 29% to $5.06 after the company announced a private placement of $31.25 million. The placement includes 5 million shares together with warrants to purchase 5 million shares.
BeyondSpring Inc. BYSI was down, falling 23% to $3.81 after Jefferies downgraded the stock from Buy to Hold and lowered the price target from $38 to $5. BeyondSpring recently received a Complete Response Letter (CRL) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the plinabulin NDA for prevention of chemotherapy-induced neutropenia.
Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 1.3% to $66.39, while gold traded down 0.3% to $1,778.30.
Silver traded up 0.2% Thursday to $22.39 while copper rose 0.4% to $4.2640.
Euro zone
European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.3%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.6% and the German DAX 30 dropped 1.3%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.8%, French CAC 40 dipped 1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB dipped 1.1%.
The Eurozone unemployment rate fell to 7.3% in October, while producer prices rose 5.4% from a month ago in October. The unemployment rate in Italy rose to 9.4% in October from 9.2% in the earlier month, while number of people registered as unemployed in Spain fell by 74,381 to 3.183 million in November.
Economics
Job cuts announced by companies dropped 34.8% from a month earlier to 14,875 in November.
US initial jobless claims increased to 222,000 in the week ending November 27th, versus 194,000 in the prior period.
The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is scheduled for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.
Federal Reserve Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles will speak at 11:00 a.m. ET.
San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly is set to speak at 11:30 a.m. ET.
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Thomas Barkin will speak at 11:30 a.m. ET.
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic is set to speak at 11:30 a.m. ET.
The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 8-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.
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