Mid-Day Market Update: U.S. Stocks Turn Positive; Nasdaq Jumps 150 Points

U.S. stocks turned higher midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining 150 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.24% to 32,891.92 while the NASDAQ rose 1.25% to 12,144.76. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.65% to 4,127.86.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Materials shares jumped by 2% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Endeavour Silver Corp. EXK, up 14% and Ramaco Resources, Inc. METC up 12%.

In trading on Thursday, utilities shares fell 0.3%.

Top Headline

Hormel Foods Corporation HRL reported upbeat earnings for its second quarter on Thursday.

Hormel Foods posted quarterly earnings of $0.48 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.47 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $3.09 billion, versus expectations of $3.07 billion.

Hormel narrowed FY22 EPS guidance to $1.87 - $1.97 from $1.87 - $2.03. It continues to expect FY22 sales of $11.7 billion - $12.5 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Repare Therapeutics Inc. RPTX shares shot up 37% to $12.00 after the company announced it has entered into a worldwide license and collaboration agreement with Roche for the development and commercialization of camonsertib.

Shares of American Superconductor Corporation AMSC got a boost, shooting 20% to $6.32 following Q4 results.

Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd CRDO shares were also up, gaining 21% to $12.39 after the company reported Q4 EPS results up from last year and better-than-expected sales results. The company also issued Q1 sales guidance above analyst estimates.

Equities Trading DOWN

Immunic, Inc. IMUX shares tumbled 41% to $3.4994 after reporting top-line data from Phase 2 CALDOSE-1 trial of Vidofludimus calcium in patients with moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis. The company said trial did not achieve primary endpoint.

Shares of Aeglea BioTherapeutics, Inc. AGLE were down 40% to $0.8984. Aeglea BioTherapeutics announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has refused to accept the company’s Biologics License Application (BLA) with a Refusal to File (RTF) letter.

Zosano Pharma Corporation ZSAN was down, falling 47% to $0.9399 after the company announced it filed a voluntary petition for relief under chapter 11.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.2% to $116.63, while gold traded up 1.3% to $1,872.10.

Silver traded up 1.9% to $22.32 on Thursday while copper rose 5% to $4.5440.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.57%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.01%. The German DAX gained 1.01%, French CAC 40 jumped 1.27% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.5%.

The annual producer inflation in the Eurozone rose to a new record high of 37.2% in April from a revised 36.9% in March.

Economics

US-based companies announced plans to reduce 20,712 jobs from their payrolls during the month of May.

Private businesses in the US hired 128,000 workers in May, the ADP said.

US initial jobless claims dropped by 11 thousand to 200 thousand during the week ended May 28th.

Nonfarm labor productivity dropped an annualized 7.3% in the first quarter, while unit labor costs surged an annualized 12.6%.

US factory orders rose 0.3% for April.

US crude oil inventories declined by 5.068 million barrels in the week ended May 27th, following a 1.019-million-barrel drop in the prior week, the Energy Information Administration said.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester will speak at 1:00 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 86,146,950 cases with around 1,032,410 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,165,730 cases and 524,640 deaths, while Brazil reported over 31,060,010 COVID-19 cases with 666,840 deaths. In total, there were at least 533,679,650 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,316,160 deaths.