U.S. Stocks Are Trading Lower As Inflation Rate Accelerates To This Level

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning following the release of inflation data for June.

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded down 0.95% to 30,687.35 while the NASDAQ fell 0.79% to 11,176.27. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.94% to 3,782.74.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares rose by 0.5% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included SilverBow Resources, Inc. SBOW, up 7% and Nordic American Tankers Limited NAT up 4%.

In trading on Wednesday, materials shares dipped by 1.5%.

Top Headline

The annual inflation rate in the US increased to 9.1% in June, the highest level since November 1981, compared to 8.6% in May and also higher than analysts’ expectations of 8.8%.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) grew 1.3% month-over-month in June vs.+1.1% consensus and +1.0% in the last reading.

Equities Trading UP

Qurate Retail, Inc. QRTEB shares shot up 123% to $6.78. Qurate Retail will host a conference call to discuss Q2 results on Friday, August 5th.

Shares of ironSource Ltd. IS got a boost, shooting 51% to $3.37 after the company announced an all-stock merger agreement with Unity Software at an approximate $4.4 billion.

MDJM Ltd MDJH shares were also up, gaining 31% to $2.80.

Equities Trading DOWN

Humanigen, Inc. HGEN shares tumbled 76% to $0.7005 after the company was informed of preliminary topline results showing its ACTIV-5/BET-B trial did not achieve statistical significance on the primary endpoint. Roth Capital, HC Wainwright & Co. and Cantor Fitzgerald downgraded the stock to Neutral.

Shares of Netcapital Inc. NCPL were down 15% to $2.56 after the company reported pricing of public offering and Nasdaq listing.

Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc. ATRA was down, falling 55% to $3.85 after the company completed a planned interim analysis of the ATA188 Phase 2 study. A safety monitoring committee said it believes the six-month interim endpoint may be an inaccurate measure. Stifel and JP Morgan downgraded their ratings on the stock.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.4% to $96.19, while gold traded down 0.1% to $1,722.60

Silver traded down 0.1% to $18.95 on Wednesday while copper fell 1.2% to $3.2480.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.1%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.7% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.8%. The German DAX dropped 1.4%, French CAC 40 fell 1.1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 1.2%.

The annual inflation rate in France increased to 5.8% in June, the highest since July 1985, while annual inflation rate in Germany eased for the first time in five months to 7.6% in June. Annual inflation rate in Spain accelerated to 10.2% in June from 8.7% in May.

The UK trade deficit shrank to GBP 9.7 billion in May from a revised GBP 9.8 billion in the prior month, while industrial production increased by 0.9% from a month ago in May. The British economy grew 0.5% month-over-month in May following a 0.2% contraction in the previous month.

Economics

The annual inflation rate in the US increased to 9.1% in June, the highest level since November 1981, compared to 8.6% in May and also higher than analysts’ expectations of 8.8%.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on petroleum inventories in the U.S. will be released at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 30-year bonds at 1:00 p.m. ET.

The Federal Open Market Committee will release its Beige Book report at 2:00 p.m. ET.

The U.S. Treasury budget statement for June will released 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 90,683,220 cases with around 1,046,610 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,672,150 cases and 525,510 deaths, while Brazil reported over 33,005,270 COVID-19 cases with 674,160 deaths. In total, there were at least 563,110,390 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,377,010 deaths.