Dow Climbs More Than 400 Points, S&P 500 Rises 1.5%

U.S. stocks traded higher toward the end of trading, with the Dow Jones gaining more than 400 points on Friday.

The Dow traded up 1.34% to 32,201.35 while the NASDAQ rose 2.01% to 12,100.49. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 1.53% to 4,067.64.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Communication services shares jumped by 2.3% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Wejo Group Limited WEJO, up 12% and fuboTV Inc. FUBO up 11%.

In trading on Thursday, utilities shares rose by just 0.7%.

Top Headline

Wholesale inventories in the US rose by 0.6% from a month ago to $900.7 billion in July, versus an initial estimate of a 0.8% increase.

Equities Trading UP

• MOGU Inc. MOGU shares shot up 30% to $2.5950 after the company announced a $10 million repurchase program.
• Shares of Zscaler, Inc. ZS got a boost, shooting 20% to $184.85 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 results and issued sales guidance above estimates.
• Digital Media Solutions, Inc. DMS shares were also up, gaining 70% to $2.17 after the company received a non-binding go-private proposal from Prism Data for $2.50 per share in cash.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Immunocore Holdings plc IMCR shares tumbled 21% to $45.39 after the company presented its Phase 1 data for TCR therapy targeting PRAME.
• Shares of Alector, Inc. ALEC were down 12% to $9.62 after Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock from Overweight to Equal-Weight and lowered its price target from $27 to $13.
• NovaBay Pharmaceuticals, Inc. NBY was down, falling 18% to $0.1702. NovaBay Pharmaceuticals entered into agreements for a private placement and warrant reprice transactions to raise up to $5.3 million.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 3.8% to $86.69, while gold traded up 0.3% at $1,726.10.

Silver traded up 1.4% to $18.705 on Friday while copper rose 0.8% to $3.5555.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 1.52%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 1.23%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 1.47%. The German DAX gained 1.43%, French CAC 40 rose 1.41% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 1.92%.

Industrial production in France dropped by 1.6% from a month ago in July versus a revised 1.2% increase in June, while industrial production in Spain gained by 5.3% year-over-year in July.

Economics

• Wholesale inventories in the US rose by 0.6% from a month ago to $900.7 billion in July, versus an initial estimate of a 0.8% increase.
• The total number of active U.S. oil rigs fell by 5 to 591 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.

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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 96,959,160 cases with around 1,074,780 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,484,720 cases and 528,120 deaths, while France reported over 34,663,100 COVID-19 cases with 154,430 deaths. In total, there were at least 612,754,590 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,512,830 deaths.