US Stocks Open Lower As Dow Drops 100 Points

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones dropping around 100 points on Thursday.

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.32% to 30,088.03 while the NASDAQ fell 0.89% to 11,120.70. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.57% to 3,768.14.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares rose by 0.5% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust BPT, up 3% and PBF Energy Inc. PBF up 6%.

In trading on Thursday, consumer discretionary shares fell by 1.5%.

Top Headline

US initial jobless claims increased by 5,000 to 213,000 in the week ended September 17th, compared to market estimates of 218,000.

Equities Trading UP

• ShiftPixy, Inc. PIXY shares shot up 31% to $17.84. ShiftPixy, on Wednesday, announced pricing of $5 million private placement.
• Shares of Albireo Pharma, Inc. ALBO got a boost, shooting 13% to $19.64. Albireo announced $115M royalty monetization agreement with Sagard.
• Virax Biolabs Group Limited VRAX shares were also up, gaining 12% to $3.39 after the company announced it has entered into a distribution agreement to market Monkeypox Virus Real-Time PCR Detection Kits with Cosmos Holdings.

Equities Trading DOWN

• BYND Cannasoft Enterprises Inc. BCAN shares tumbled 20% to $3.53. The company on Monday announced it has signed a share purchase agreement to acquire 100% ownership of Zigi Carmel Initiatives & Investments for $28 million in stock.
• Shares of Nauticus Robotics, Inc. KITT were down 17% to $5.29. Schlumberger B.V. recently disclosed 15.5% passive stake in Nauticus Robotics.
• Steakholder Foods Ltd. STKH was down, falling 15% to $2.15.

Also check out: Chemours, Alcoa And Other Big Losers From Wednesday

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.5% to $83.31, while gold traded up 0.4% at $1,681.50.

Silver traded up 0.5% to $19.57 on Thursday while copper rose 0.4% to $3.4810.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.6%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.8% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1%. The German DAX dropped 1.6%, French CAC 40 fell 1.5% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.8%.

The manufacturing climate indicator in France declined for a third month to a reading of 102 in September from a revised 103 in August. The consumer confidence indicator in the Eurozone declined by 3.8 points to -28.8 in September. The Bank of England increased its key interest rate by 50bps to 2.25% during its September meeting.

Economics

• US initial jobless claims increased by 5,000 to 213,000 in the week ended September 17th, compared to market estimates of 218,000.
• The US current account deficit shrank to $251.1 billion in the second quarter, following a record gap of $282.5 billion in the first quarter.
• The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is scheduled for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.
• The Kansas City Fed manufacturing index for September will be released at 11:00 a.m. ET. Analysts expect the Kansas City manufacturing index declining slightly to plus 2 in September after slowing by 10 points to a reading of plus 3 in August.
• The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 8-week bills at 11:30 a.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 97,721,710 cases with around 1,080,350 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,553,040 cases and 528,420 deaths, while France reported over 35,011,660 COVID-19 cases with 154,820 deaths. In total, there were at least 618,773,810 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,535,010 deaths.