Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Mostly Higher; Nasdaq Jumps 1%

U.S. stocks traded mostly higher, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining 1% on Monday.

The Dow traded down 0.02% to 34,811.93 while the NASDAQ rose 1.03% to 14,408.19. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.35% to 4,561.63.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Communication services shares jumped by 1.7% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Twitter, Inc TWTR, up 23% and Perion Network Ltd. PERI up 14%.

In trading on Monday, utilities shares fell 1.4%.

Top Headline

Factory orders in the US dropped by 0.5% month-over-month to $542 billion in February, recording the first drop since April last year.

Equities Trading UP

Aterian, Inc. ATER shares shot up 49% to $3.4684. Aterian said Cynthia Williams has joined the Company's Board of Directors.

Shares of Jumia Technologies AG JMIA got a boost, shooting 27% to $12.09 after the company announced it would make its last mile logistics capabilities available to UPS.

Twitter, Inc. TWTR shares were also up, gaining 24% to $48.73 after Tesla CEO Elon Musk disclosed a 9.2% passive stake in the social media company.

Equities Trading DOWN

Curis, Inc. CRIS shares tumbled 38% to $1.5150. The FDA has placed a partial clinical hold on Curis Inc's TakeAim Leukemia Phase 1/2a study in relapsed or refractory (R/R) acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or high-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).

Shares of Snow Lake Resources Ltd. LITM were down 16% to $8.40.

Iveda Solutions, Inc. IVDA was down, falling 17% to $3.14. Iveda reported pricing of $8.0 million public offering, uplisting to Nasdaq and reverse stock split.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 3.4% to $102.67, while gold traded up 0.5% to $1,933.90.

Silver traded down 0.7% Monday to $24.475 while copper rose 2% to $4.7840.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.7%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.2%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.1%. The German DAX gained 0.3%, French CAC 40 gained 0.4% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.1%.

The number of foreign tourist arrivals in Spain climbed 1007.8% year-over-year to 3.157 million in February, while number of people registered as unemployed in the country dropped by 2,921 from a month ago to 3.109 million in March. The German trade surplus shrank to €11.4 billion in February from €17.9 billion a year ago.

Economics

Factory orders in the US dropped by 0.5% month-over-month to $542 billion in February, recording the first drop since April last year.

COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 81,832,610 cases with around 1,008,190 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,029,040 cases and 521,380 deaths, while Brazil reported over 29,999,810 COVID-19 cases with 660,260 deaths. In total, there were at least 491,871,560 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,176,620 deaths.