Mid-Day Market Update: US Stocks Turn Negative; Zogenix Shares Spike Higher

Midway through trading Wednesday, the Dow traded down 0.13% to 35,321.51 while the NASDAQ fell 0.53% to 14,430.41. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.19% to 4,568.33.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 68,767,000 cases with around 877,240 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 37,901,240 cases and 487,220 deaths, while Brazil reported over 23,215,550 COVID-19 cases with 621,570 deaths. In total, there were at least 335,521,830 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,574,720 deaths.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer staples shares gained 1.1% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Splash Beverage Group, Inc. SBEV, up 26% and Unilever PLC UL up 10%.

In trading on Wednesday, consumer discretionary shares fell by 0.9%.

Top Headline

Bank of America Corporation BAC reported better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

Bank of America posted quarterly earnings of $0.82 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.76 per share. The company’s quarterly revenue came in at $22.06 billion, versus expectations of $22.18 billion.

 

Equities Trading UP

Zogenix, Inc. ZGNX shares shot up 67% to $26.15 after the company announced it will be acquired by UCB for approximately $1.9 billion.

Shares of Splash Beverage Group, Inc. SBEV got a boost, shooting 29% to $4.18 after the company announced it has received authorization to sell its Pulpoloco Sangria line in 187 of Ralph's Grocery stores.

NSTS Bancorp, Inc. NSTS shares were also up, gaining 26% to $12.60 after the company priced its IPO at $10 per share.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Cardiff Oncology, Inc. CRDF shares tumbled 24% to $4.6697 after the company posted new data from Phase 1b/2 trial of onvansertib combined with standard-of-care (SOC) FOLFIRI/bevacizumab for second-line KRAS-mutated metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).

Shares of Yumanity Therapeutics, Inc. YMTX were down 20% to $1.95. The FDA has placed a partial clinical hold on Yumanity Therapeutics multidose clinical trials of YTX-7739, currently being developed for Parkinson's disease.

OncoCyte Corporation OCX was down, falling 19% to $1.78. OncoCyte announced a development and co-marketing agreement for two distributed in vitro diagnostic assays on Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Ion Torrent Genexus System.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2.2% to $87.27, while gold traded up 1.5% to $1,839.40.

Silver traded up 2.4% Wednesday to $24.05 while copper rose 2.1% to $4.4755.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.11%, London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.25%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.02%. The German DAX climbed 0.05%, French CAC 40 rose 0.29% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.49%.

The Eurozone current account surplus shrank to EUR 26.0 billion in November from EUR 27.5 billion in the year-ago month. Germany’s annual inflation rate was confirmed at 5.3% in December, notching the highest level since June 1992.

Annual inflation rate in the UK climbed to 5.4% in December from 5.1% in the previous month, while headline rate of output prices fell to 9.3% year-over-year in December.

Economics

Housing starts rose 1.4% to an annualized rate of 1.702 million in December, while building permits jumped 9.1% to an annual rate of 1.873 million.

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index jumped 15.2% year-over-year for the week ended January 15.

The Treasury is set to auction 20-year bonds at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Check out the full economic calendar here