Mid-Day Market Update: Express Rises Following Q3 Earnings; Context Therapeutics Shares Plummet

Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 1.37% to 34,488.64 while the NASDAQ rose 0.01% to 15,256.08. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.85% to 4,551.45.

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 2.2% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included CNFinance Holdings Limited CNF, up 8% and Medallion Financial Corp. MFIN up 6%.

In trading on Thursday, information technology shares fell 0.2%.

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 13% to $3.81 after the company posted better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter.

Shares of Biofrontera Inc. BFRI got a boost, shooting 29% to $5.58. Biofrontera announced Notice of Allowance for U.S. patent titled 'Illumination for Photodynamic Therapy.'

CF Acquisition Corp. VI CFVI shares were also up, gaining 19% to $11.65 following news of a SPAC merger deal with video platform Rumble. A filing issued by Rumble Thursday highlighted Donald Trump and actor Russell Brand among its influencer currently utilizing the platform.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Kirkland's, Inc. KIRK shares tumbled 29% to $14.56 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 results.

Shares of Context Therapeutics Inc. CNTX were down 29% to $5.09 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.

Tantech Holdings Ltd TANH was down, falling 58% to $0.6310 after the company priced 21,120,509 share common stock offering at $0.65 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.5% to $65.89, while gold traded down 0.9% to $1,768.70.

Silver traded down 0.1% Thursday to $22.31 while copper rose 0.7% to $4.2770.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.23%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.82% and the German DAX 30 dropped 1.39%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.57%, French CAC 40 dipped 1.2% and Italy’s FTSE MIB dipped 1.35%.

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.

US natural-gas supplies dropped 59 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

Check out the full economic calendar here