US Stocks Turn Lower; Nasdaq Drops Over 100 Points

U.S. stocks turned lower midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite dropping more than 100 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded down 0.12% to 31,099.20 while the NASDAQ fell 1.18% to 11,581.65. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.71% to 3,918.10.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares climbed 0.7% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Armata Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ARMP, up 10% and KemPharm, Inc. KMPH up 9%.

In trading on Thursday, information technology shares fell by 2.2%.

Top Headline

U.S. retail sales increased 0.3% in August from July, versus a revised 0.4% decline in the prior month and topping market expectations for a flat reading.

Equities Trading UP

• ZW Data Action Technologies Inc. CNET shares shot up 44% to $0.9549. ZW Data Action Technologies reported planned acquisition of Henan Baodun.
• Shares of NeuroBo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. NRBO got a boost, shooting 36% to $22.96 after the company announced Dong-A has licensed its global exclusive development rights of DA-1241 for type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty hepatitis and DA-1726 for obesity and non-alcoholic fatty hepatitis to NeuroBo.
• HeartBeam, Inc. BEAT shares were also up, gaining 75% to $2.1895 after the company announced its patent for a 12-lead electrocardiogram patch monitor intended for detection of acute coronary syndrome and cardiac arrhythmia was issued by the USPTO.

Equities Trading DOWN

• IronNet, Inc. IRNT shares tumbled 42% to $1.28 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q2 EPS and sales results. The company also withdrew its FY23 guidance in light of management transitions, restructuring and underperformance of current quarter.
• Shares of Color Star Technology Co., Ltd. CSCW were down 44% to $0.0667 after the company announced a $5.6 million registered direct offering priced at $0.08 per unit.
• Eloxx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ELOX was down, falling 40% to $0.2267 after the company announced the combination of subcutaneous ELX-02 with ivacaftor did not achieve statistical significance for efficacy endpoints in Phase 2 study in Class 1 cystic fibrosis.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 4.2% to $84.79, while gold traded down 1.9% at $1,676.20.

Silver traded down 1.8% to $19.21 on Thursday while copper fell 0.8% to $3.4915.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.74%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.02%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index slipped 0.1%. The German DAX declined 0.57%, French CAC 40 fell 1.12% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index slipped 0.42%.

The Eurozone posted a trade deficit of EUR 34 billion in July, recording the ninth straight gap. Imports jumped by 44% to EUR 269.5 billion, while exports increased 13.3% to EUR 235.5 billion. Hourly labor costs in the Eurozone rose by 4.2% year-over-year in the second quarter following a revised 4.0% growth in the prior period.

Annual inflation rate in France fell to 5.9% in August from 6.1% in the previous month, while wholesale prices in Germany increased by 18.9% year-over-year in August.

Economics

• U.S. initial jobless claims fell by 5,000 to 213,000 in the week ended September 10th, compared to analysts’ estimates of 226,000. This was the lowest number of jobless claims since the last week of May.
• The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index dropped to -9.9 in September from 6.2 in the prior month.
• U.S. retail sales increased 0.3% in August from July, versus a revised 0.4% decline in the prior month and topping market expectations for a flat reading.
• Import prices in the US declined 1.0% from a month ago in August. US export prices fell 1.6% from a month ago in August
• U.S. industrial production fell 0.2% from a month ago in August.
• U.S. business inventories rose 0.6% for July.
• U.S. natural-gas supplies climbed 77 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

Check out this: US Stocks Settle Higher Amid Low Volatility

COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 97,340,010 cases with around 1,077,470 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,516,470 cases and 528,250 deaths, while France reported over 34,798,130 COVID-19 cases with 154,610 deaths. In total, there were at least 615,621,900 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,523,540 deaths.