Mid-Day Market Update: Gold Drops Over 1%; StoneMor Shares Jump

U.S. stocks traded higher midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining more than 80 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded up 0.11% to 31,964.07 while the NASDAQ rose 0.79% to 11,353.35. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.40% to 3,957.27.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer discretionary shares rose by 2.3% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included StoneMor Inc. STON, up 51% and Caleres, Inc. CAL up 29%.

In trading on Wednesday, health care shares fell 0.3%.

Top Headline

DICK'S Sporting Goods, Inc. DKS reported upbeat earnings and sales results for its first quarter.

Dick's posted quarterly adjusted earnings of $2.85 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $2.47 per share. The company’s sales came in at $2.70 billion, versus expectations of $2.59 billion.

Dick's said it sees FY22 adjusted EPS of $9.15 to $11.70 and comparable store sales of negative 8% to negative 2%.

Equities Trading UP

StoneMor Inc. STON shares shot up 51% to $3.4286. StoneMor entered into an agreement to be acquired by Axar Capital Management, LP.

Shares of BlackSky Technology Inc. BKSY got a boost, shooting 108% to $2.45 after the company was awarded a 10-year electro optical commercial layer contract with the U.S. government.

The Very Good Food Company Inc. VGFC shares were also up, gaining 156% to $0.3461 as the company announced it increased retail distribution across Canada with Loblaw Companies.

Equities Trading DOWN

Verrica Pharmaceuticals Inc. VRCA shares tumbled 59% to $2.28 after the company announced it received a Complete Response Letter from the FDA for its NDA for VP-102 as a direct result of deficiencies at general reinspection of Sterling Pharmaceuticals Services, LLC.

Shares of Super Group (SGHC) Limited SGHC were down 18% to $6.68 after reporting Q1 results.

COMSovereign Holding Corp. COMS was down, falling 32% to $0.1860. COMSovereign said Nasdaq sent deficiency notice related to delayed quarterly report.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.4% to $109.37, while gold traded down 1.3% to $1,842.00.

Silver traded down 1.1% to $21.82 on Wednesday while copper fell 1.2% to $4.2530.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.63%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.51% and Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 1.49%. The German DAX gained 0.63%, French CAC 40 rose 0.73% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 1.57%.

The S&P Global Flash Eurozone services PMI declined to 56.3 in May from 57.7 in April, while manufacturing PMI slipped to 54.4 from 55.5. UK’s services PMI fell to 51.8 in May from 58.9 in April, while manufacturing PMI dropped to a 16-month low of 54.6 in May.

French composite PMI slipped to 57.1 in May from April's 51-month high of 57.6, while German composite PMI rose to 54.6 from 54.3.

Economics

US durable goods orders rose 0.4% month-over-month to $265.3 billion in April.

US crude oil inventories declined by 1.019 million barrels in the week ended May 20th, the Energy Information Administration said.

The Treasury is set to auction 5-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.

The Federal Open Market Committee will issue minutes of its latest meeting at 2:00 p.m. ET.

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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 85,241,010 cases with around 1,029,520 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,142,190 cases and 524,500 deaths, while Brazil reported over 30,836,810 COVID-19 cases with 665,950 deaths. In total, there were at least 529,165,590 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,304,060 deaths.