Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Crude Oil Rises Over 3%; Protagonist Therapeutics Shares Plummet

U.S. stocks remained lower toward the end of trading, with the Dow Jones tumbling more than 500 points on Tuesday.

The Dow traded down 1.57% to 33,516.56 while the NASDAQ fell 2.72% to 12,650.53. The S&P also fell, dropping, 1.79% to 4,219.17.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares rose by 1.4% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Arch Resources, Inc. ARCH, up 19% and PHX Minerals Inc. PHX up 8%.

In trading on Tuesday, consumer discretionary shares dipped by 4.3%.

Top Headline

PepsiCo Inc PEP reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter on Tuesday.

PepsiCo reported first-quarter FY22 sales growth of 9.3% year-on-year to $16.2 billion, beating the consensus of $15.53 billion. Adjusted EPS of $1.29 beat the analyst consensus of $1.23.

PepsiCo continues to expect FY22 core constant currency EPS growth of 8%. The assumption implies FY22 core EPS of $6.63 (consensus $6.65), a 6% increase compared to 2021 core EPS of $6.26.

 

Equities Trading UP

Evoke Pharma, Inc. EVOK shares shot up 136% to $0.93 after the company announced it has been granted new drug product exclusivity by the FDA for GIMOTI nasal spray.

Shares of Arch Resources, Inc. ARCH got a boost, shooting 19% to $156.25 after the company reported better-than-expected Q1 sales results.

Magnachip Semiconductor Corporation MX shares were also up, gaining 19% to $17.86 following a Korea Economic Daily report titled "Korea's LX Group seeks to acquire Magnachip Semiconductor."

 

Equities Trading DOWN

Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc. PTGX shares tumbled 50% to $9.43 after the company announced topline results from the Phase 2 IDEAL study of PN-943 in moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis (UC) patients.

Shares of Cenntro Electric Group Limited CENN were down 15% to $1.6004 after reporting FY21 results.

NextDecade Corporation NEXT was down, falling 8% to $5.58. Stifel downgraded NextDecade from Hold to Sell and raised the price target from $2 to $4.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 3.4% to $101.94, while gold traded up 0.4% to $1,904.20.

Silver traded down 0.5% Tuesday to $23.555 while copper rose 0.1% to $4.4550.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.90%, London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.08%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.58%. The German DAX dropped 1.20%, French CAC 40 fell 0.54% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index slipped 0.95%.

The UK government reported a £13.1 billion deficit in its public finances for March.

Economics

U.S. durable goods orders rose 0.8% month-over-month in March following a revised 1.7% decline in the previous month.

The S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller home price index climbed 20.2% year-over-year in February.

The FHFA House Price Index rose a record 2.1% from a month ago in February.

The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell to 107.3 in April from 107.6.

U.S. new home sales fell 8.6% to an annual rate of 763,000 for March.

The Richmond Fed composite manufacturing index rose to 14 in April from 13 in March.

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COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 82,733,860 cases with around 1,018,580 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,062,090 cases and 522,220 deaths, while Brazil reported over 30,355,910 COVID-19 cases with 662,770 deaths. In total, there were at least 510,131,270 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,245,920 deaths.