Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; US Inflation Rate Accelerates to 8.6%

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones dropping more than 600 points on Friday.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded down 1.98% to 31,634.78 while the NASDAQ fell 2.55% to 11,454.21. The S&P also fell, dropping, 2.13% to 3,932.15.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares rose by 0.4% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Imperial Petroleum Inc. IMPP, up 6% and Permian Basin Royalty Trust PBT up 6%.

In trading on Friday, information technology shares fell 2.7%.

Top Headline

Annual inflation rate in the US accelerated to 8.6% in May, reaching the highest mark since December 1981. Analysts, however, were expecting a reading of 8.3%.

Equities Trading UP

Cogent Biosciences, Inc. COGT shares shot up 69% to $8.37 after the company reported initial data from its ongoing Phase 2 APEX clinical trial.

Shares of Energy Focus, Inc. EFOI got a boost, shooting 16% to $2.66. Energy Focus recently reported a $3.5 million private placement priced at-the-market under Nasdaq rules.

RLX Technology Inc. RLX shares were also up, gaining 12% to $2.4280.

Equities Trading DOWN

Fulcrum Therapeutics, Inc. FULC shares tumbled 48% to $4.24 after the company announced clinical proof-of-concept data from the ongoing Phase 1b trial of FTX-6058 for the treatment of sickle cell disease.

Shares of Caribou Biosciences, Inc. CRBU were down 32% to $5.89 after the company reported additional data from the CB-010 allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy Phase 1 ANTLER trial at the European Hematology Association 2022 Hybrid Congress.

Comtech Telecommunications Corp. CMTL was down, falling 22% to $9.57 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q3 sales results.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.1% to $121.64, while gold traded down 0.3% to $1,846.80.

Silver traded down 1.1% to $21.585 on Friday while copper fell 0.4% to $4.3645.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.3%, London’s FTSE 100 dropped 1.1% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.6%. The German DAX dropped 1.6%, French CAC 40 fell 1.4% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dipped 2.7%.

Italy’s industrial production increased 1.6% from a month ago in April following a revised 0.2% increase a month ago. Annual inflation rate in Spain accelerated to 8.7% in May from 8.3% in April

Economics

Annual inflation rate in the US accelerated to 8.6% in May, reaching the highest mark since December 1981. Analysts, however, were expecting a reading of 8.3%.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index fell to 50.2 in June from 58.1 in the previous month.

The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week will be released at 1:00 p.m. ET.

The U.S. Treasury budget report for May is scheduled for release 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 87,114,740 cases with around 1,035,320 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,207,260 cases and 524,740 deaths, while Brazil reported over 31,360,850 COVID-19 cases with 667,840 deaths. In total, there were at least 539,281,010 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,328,520 deaths.