Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Target Posts Upbeat Earnings

U.S. stocks opened on a downbeat note this morning, amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Following the market opening Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.81% to 33,616.69 while the NASDAQ fell 0.22% to 13,721.63. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.49% to 4,352.50.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed by 1.6% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included New Fortress Energy Inc. NFE, up 11% and North European Oil Royalty Trust NRT up 11%.

In trading on Tuesday, energy shares fell by 2.6%.

Top Headline

Target Corporation TGT reported better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter, while sales missed estimates.

Target posted quarterly earnings of $3.19 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $2.86 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at 31.00 billion, missing expectations of $31.41 billion.

Target said it sees low-to-mid single digit revenue growth for 2022.

Equities Trading UP

iQIYI, Inc. IQ shares shot up 26% to $5.22 after the company reported fourth-quarter FY21 revenue of $1.2 billion, flat year-on-year, beating the consensus of $1.15 billion.

Shares of Veritiv Corporation VRTV got a boost, shooting 26% to $134.66 after the company posted upbeat quarterly results.

UserTesting, Inc. USER shares were also up, gaining 27% to $10.52 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 EPS and sales results. The company also issued Q1 and FY22 EPS and sales guidance above analysts’ estimates.

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Equities Trading DOWN

GoodRx Holdings, Inc. GDRX shares tumbled 40% to $16.34 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 EPS and sales results and issued Q1 sales guidance below estimates.

Shares of Vroom, Inc. VRM were down 36% to $3.9050 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 EPS results.

Imperial Petroleum Inc. IMPP was down, falling 31% to $1.63.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2.9% to $98.50, while gold traded up 1.4% to $1,928.00.

Silver traded up 1.5% Tuesday to $24.725 while copper rose 1.4% to $4.5185.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 1.5%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.3%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.09%. The German DAX declined 2%, French CAC 40 dipped 2.3% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dipped 2%.

The IHS Markit Eurozone manufacturing PMI was revised lower to 58.2 in February versus an initial reading of 58.4. Spain’s current account balance swung to a deficit of EUR 1.31 billion in December versus a year-ago surplus of EUR 0.92 billion. Spain's annual inflation rate increased to 7.4% in February from 6.1% in January.

German manufacturing PMI was revised lower to 58.4 in February versus a preliminary reading of 58.5, while Italy manufacturing PMI remained at 58.3 in February. The IHS Markit French manufacturing PMI climbed to 57.2 in February, while Spain’s manufacturing PMI climbed to a three-month high of 56.9 in February.

Economics

The IHS Markit manufacturing PMI was revised lower to 57.3 in February versus a preliminary reading of 57.5.

The ISM manufacturing PMI climbed for a second straight month to 58.6 in February from 57.6 in January.

Construction spending increased 1.3% to an annual rate of $1.677 trillion in January.

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic is set to speak at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Check out the full economic calendar here

COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 80,647,340 cases with around 975,150 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 42,931,040 cases and 514,050 deaths, while Brazil reported over 28,787,620 COVID-19 cases with 649,440 deaths. In total, there were at least 437,587,420 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,977,300 deaths.