Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Rise; Delta Air Lines Profit Tops Estimates

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.37% to 36,423.44 while the NASDAQ rose 0.12% to 15,206.73. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.21% to 4,736.11.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 64,359,400 cases with around 866,890 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 36,317,920 cases and 485,030 deaths, while Brazil reported over 22,718,600 COVID-19 cases with 620,410 deaths. In total, there were at least 317,843,630 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,532,990 deaths.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Industrials shares rose 0.7% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Nikola Corporation NKLA, up 6% and Li-Cycle Holdings Corp. LICY up 4%.

In trading on Thursday, health care shares fell by 1.1%.

Top Headline

Delta Air Lines, Inc. DAL reported better-than-expected results for its fourth quarter.

Delta Air Lines posted quarterly earnings of $0.22 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.13 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $9.47 billion, versus expectations of $9.14 billion.

 

Equities Trading UP

Takung Art Co., Ltd. TKAT shares shot up 23% to $4.31. Traders are circulating earlier news that China is looking to separate NFTs from crypto via new blockchain infrastructure.

Shares of Dave Inc. DAVE got a boost, shooting 24% to $6.46.

KB Home KBH shares were also up, gaining 13% to $47.98 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 EPS results and issued FY22 housing revenue guidance.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. SPCE shares tumbled 15% to $10.49 after the company announced a proposed convertible senior notes offering.

Shares of Denali Therapeutics Inc. DNLI were down 14% to $33.04. The FDA issued a clinical hold on Denali Therapeutics’ Investigational New Drug (IND) application for DNL919 TREM.

GreenTree Hospitality Group Ltd. GHG was down, falling 11% to $7.48 after the company posted results for the third quarter.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.1% to $82.63, while gold traded down 0.5% to $1,817.80.

Silver traded down 0.3% Thursday to $23.15 while copper fell 0.8% to $4.5405.

Euro zone

European shares were slightly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.1%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.1%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.3%. The German DAX gained 0.1%, French CAC 40 fell 0.6% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.4%.

Italy’s industrial production rose 1.9% from a month ago in November following a revised 0.5% decline in the prior month.

Economics

US initial jobless claims rose by 23 thousand from the previous week to 230 thousand in the recent week.

The Producer Price Index rose 0.2% for December following a revised 1% rise in the previous month.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is scheduled for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 8-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Thomas Barkin is set to speak at 12:00 p.m. ET.

Chicago Fed President Charles Evans will speak at 1:00 p.m. ET.

The Treasury will auction 30-year bonds at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Check out the full economic calendar here