Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Nasdaq Rises 70 Points; Future FinTech Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.08% to 36,517.50 while the NASDAQ rose 0.46% to 15,838.04. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.12% to 4,798.69.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 54,656,860 cases with around 844,270 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 34,822,040 cases and 480,860 deaths, while Brazil reported over 22,263,830 COVID-19 cases with 618,870 deaths. In total, there were at least 285,031,830 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,441,370 deaths.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Real estate shares climbed 0.6% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included KE Holdings Inc. BEKE, up 13% and Diversified Healthcare Trust DHC up 8%.

In trading on Thursday, materials shares fell 0.3%.

Top Headline

US initial jobless claims dropped by 8,000 from the prior period to 198,000 in the week ending December 25. However, analysts were expecting a reading of 208,000.

 

Equities Trading UP

Kiora Pharmaceuticals, Inc. KPRX shares shot up 64% to $1.44. Kiora Pharmaceuticals recently appointed David Hollander, MD, MBA, to its Board of Directors.

Shares of Future FinTech Group Inc. FTFT got a boost, shooting 31% to $1.6150 after the company announced a new blockchain division.

Integrated Media Technology Limited IMTE shares were also up, gaining 18% to $5.33 as the company agreed to take over the rights and obligation on a Cooperation Agreement on developing a Blockchain business.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Vector Group Ltd. VGR shares tumbled 35% to $11.15. Vector Group said it has completed the spin-off of Douglas Elliman Inc. into a standalone, publicly traded company.

Shares of Puxin Limited NEW were down 23% to $0.4170. Puxin shares jumped 80% on Wednesday after the company reported Q2 earnings results.

Biofrontera Inc. BFRI was down, falling 13% to $7.63. Biofrontera announced reduction of Biofrontera AG shareholding to less than 50% through warrant exercises.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.4% to $76.89, while gold traded up 0.5% to $1,814.70.

Silver traded up 0.8% Thursday to $23.045 while copper fell 0.7% to $4.3830.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.15%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.46% and the German DAX 40 gained 0.21%. Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 slipped 0.24%, while French CAC 40 gained 0.16% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.01%.

Spain's annual inflation rate increased to 6.7% in December from 5.5% in the earlier month. House prices in the UK increased by 10.4% year-over-year in December following a 10% rise in the previous month.

Economics

US initial jobless claims dropped by 8,000 from the prior period to 198,000 in the week ending December 25. However, analysts were expecting a reading of 208,000.

The Chicago PMI rose to 63.1 for December from previous reading of 61.8.

US natural-gas supplies dropped 136 billion cubic feet last week, the EIA said.

Data on farm prices for November will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.

Check out the full economic calendar here