Nasdaq Turns Higher; Delta Air Lines Earnings Miss Estimates

U.S. stocks pared some losses midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite turning higher on Wednesday. The annual inflation rate in the US increased to 9.1% in June, the highest level since November 1981.

The Dow traded down 0.58% to 30,800.64 while the NASDAQ rose 0.19% to 11,285.78. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.27% to 3,808.63.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer discretionary shares rose by 1.1% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Stitch Fix, Inc. SFIX, up 18% and Boxed, Inc. BOXD up 19%.

In trading on Wednesday, financials shares dipped by 1.1%.

Top Headline

Delta Air Lines, Inc. DAL reported weaker-than-expected earnings for its second quarter on Wednesday.

Delta Air Lines reported a second-quarter FY22 adjusted operating revenue decline of 1% from 1Q19 to $12.31 billion. GAAP operating revenue was $13.82 billion, a growth of 10% from 1Q19. Analysts expected the company to report revenues of $13.40 billion. Adjusted EPS was $1.44 below the consensus of $1.64.

Equities Trading UP

The OLB Group, Inc. OLB shares shot up 42% to $1.32 after the company announced that its board of directors has authorized a share repurchase program of up to 1,000,000 million shares of its outstanding shares of common stock.

Shares of ironSource Ltd. IS got a boost, shooting 49% to $3.32 after the company announced an all-stock merger agreement with Unity Software at an approximate $4.4 billion.

XORTX Therapeutics Inc. XRTX shares were also up, gaining 33% to $1.64 after the company announced topline results from Part 1 of the 3 part Pharmacokinetics Bridging Study showed a substantial increase in oral bioavailability of two versions of its proprietary oxypurinol formulation.

Equities Trading DOWN

Humanigen, Inc. HGEN shares tumbled 77.2% to $0.6832 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 Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation AGTC were down 53% to $0.4026 after the company announced pricing of a $10 million underwritten public offering.

Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc. ATRA was down, falling 54% to $4.02 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 0.1% to $95.89, while gold traded up 0.3% to $1,730.00.

Silver traded up 0.7% to $19.095 on Wednesday while copper fell 1.1% to $3.2535.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.38%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.07% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.19%. The German DAX dropped 1.66%, French CAC 40 fell 1.26% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 1.47%.

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%.

US crude-oil inventories climbed 3.3 million barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

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.