Nasdaq Drops Over 100 Points; Spero Therapeutics Shares Spike Higher

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

The Dow traded down 0.01% to 30,180.59 while the NASDAQ fell 1.13% to 11,093.30. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.45% to 3,772.95

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares rose by 0.4% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included BP CVR Energy, Inc. CVI, up 4% and PBF Energy Inc. PBF up 6%.

In trading on Thursday, consumer discretionary shares fell by 2.1%.

Top Headline

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.

Equities Trading UP

• ShiftPixy, Inc. PIXY shares shot up 33% to $18.20. ShiftPixy, on Wednesday, announced pricing of $5 million private placement.
• Shares of Inventiva S.A. IVA got a boost, shooting 23% to $4.71 after the company reported its 2022 first-half financial results and provided a corporate update.
• Spero Therapeutics, Inc. SPRO shares were also up, gaining 240% to $2.7999 after the company announced it has entered into an exclusive license agreement with GSK for Spero's late-stage antibiotic asset, tebipenem HBr. Spero Therapeutics will receive $66 million upfront, with potential for future milestone payments, and tiered royalties.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Luminar Technologies, Inc. LAZR shares tumbled 17% to $7.76 after Northland Capital downgraded the stock from Outperform to Market Perform and lowered its price target from $13 to $10.
• Shares of MediWound Ltd. MDWD were down 21% to $1.39 after the company announced concurrent registered direct and private placement offerings priced at-the-market of roughly $30 million
• Top Ships Inc. TOPS was down, falling 25% to $0.1610 after the company announced a 1-for-20 reverse stock split

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.7% to $83.53, while gold traded up 0.2% at $1,679.20.

Silver traded up 0.2% to $19.525 on Thursday while copper rose 0.2% to $3.4735.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.46%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.86% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.05%. The German DAX dropped 1.45%, French CAC 40 fell 1.46% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.77%.

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.
• US natural-gas supplies climbed 103 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

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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.