Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Down 5%; Celsion Shares Plummet

U.S. stocks traded lower toward the end of trading, with the Dow Jones dropping 150 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded down 0.30% to 34,536.86 while the NASDAQ fell 1.83% to 13,944.60. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.86% to 4,486.14.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Utilities shares jumped by 1.9% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Cadiz Inc. CDZI, up 5% and Unitil Corporation UTL up 4%.

In trading on Wednesday, consumer discretionary shares fell 3.1%.

Top Headline

RPM International Inc. RPM reported better-than-expected results for its third quarter.

RPM International posted quarterly adjusted earnings of $0.38 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.30 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $1.43 billion, versus expectations of $1.41 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Advent Technologies Holdings, Inc. ADN shares shot up 75% to $3.5350. Advent Technologies and Hyundai Motor Company entered into technology assessment, sales and development agreement.

Shares of Tufin Software Technologies Ltd. TUFN got a boost, shooting 43% to $12.89 after the company announced it will be acquired by Turn/River Capital for $13 per share in cash.

Sunshine Biopharma, Inc. SBFM shares were also up, gaining 31% to $7.36. Sunshine Biopharma announced that two of its newly designed mRNA molecules are effective at destroying cancer cells grown in culture.

Equities Trading DOWN

Celsion Corporation CLSN shares tumbled 18% to $5.10 after the company announced a $7 million registered direct offering priced at-the-market under Nasdaq rules.

Shares of Hyzon Motors Inc. HYZN were down 18% to $5.07 after Canaccord Genuity downgraded the stock from Buy to Hold and lowered its price target from $12 to $6.

Guardforce AI Co., Limited GFAI was down, falling 33% to $1.14 as the company reported pricing of $10.0 million registered direct offering.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 5.2% to $96.68, while gold traded down 0.2% to $1,923.60.

Silver traded down 0.4% Wednesday to $24.435 while copper fell 1.5% to $4.7255.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.53%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.34%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.64%. The German DAX declined 1.89%, French CAC 40 fell 2.21% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 2.06%.

Factory orders in Germany dropped 2.2% from a month ago in February. The S&P Global Eurozone Construction PMI fell to 52.8 in March from 56.3 in February, while German construction PMI declined to 50.9 in March from 54.9. The IHS Markit France Construction PMI fell to 48.4 in March from 50 in the previous month.

Economics

US crude oil inventories increased by 2.421 million barrels to 412.4 million barrels during the week ended April 1st, the Energy Information Administration said.

The Federal Open Market Committee issued minutes of its latest meeting.

COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 81,900,010 cases with around 1,009,390 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,030,920 cases and 521,510 deaths, while Brazil reported over 30,040,120 COVID-19 cases with 660,580 deaths. In total, there were at least 494,246,050 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,183,770 deaths.