US Stocks Edge Higher; Dow Rises 50 Points

U.S. stocks traded mostly higher this morning, with the Dow Jones gaining around 50 points on Tuesday.

Following the market opening Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.15% to 32,808.22 while the NASDAQ rose 0.01% to 10,546.63. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.05% to 3,819.49.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares rose by 0.7% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included NextDecade Corporation NEXT, up 6%, and Uranium Energy Corp. UEC, up 6%.

In trading on Tuesday, real estate shares tumbled by 1.1%.

Top Headline

 

Housing starts in the US fell 0.5% to an annualized rate of 1.427 million in November, while building permits dipped 11.2 percent from a month ago to an annual rate of 1.342 million in November.

 

Equities Trading UP

 

• Verona Pharma plc (NASDAQ: VRNA) shares shot up 42% to $19.08 after the company announced ensifentrine met primary and key secondary endpoints in the Phase 3 ENHANCE-1 trial for COPD.
• Shares of MediaAlpha, Inc. MAX got a boost, shooting 16% to $10.65. JP Morgan upgraded MediaAlpha from Neutral to Overweight and raised the price target from $12 to $14.
• EverQuote, Inc. EVER shares were also up, gaining 15% to $12.15 after JPMorgan upgraded the stock from Underweight to Overweight and raised its price target from $8 to $15.

 

 

Equities Trading DOWN

• Caravelle International Group (NASDAQ: CACO) shares tumbled 59% to $2.00 after declining over 12% on Monday.
• Shares of Arcus Biosciences, Inc. RCUS were down 28% to $21.92. Gilead Sciences and Arcus Biosciences announced results from the fourth interim analysis of the ARC-7 Phase 2 study for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer with PD-L1 tumor proportion score ≥50% without epidermal growth factor receptor or anaplastic lymphoma kinase mutations.
• Embecta Corp. EMBC was down, falling 18% to $26.71 after the company reported a decline in Q4 sales.

 

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.9% to $75.90 while gold traded up 1.2% at $1,818.80.

Silver traded up 3.4% to $24.015 on Tuesday while copper rose 0.2% to $3.7920.

 

Euro zone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.3%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.1% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.7%. The German DAX fell 0.5%, French CAC 40 fell 0.4% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.1%.

The Eurozone recorded a current account deficit of EUR 4.4 billion in October versus a year-ago surplus of EUR 6.51 billion. Italy’s current account surplus shrank to EUR 710 million in October from EUR 3,024 million in the year-ago month.

The annual producer inflation in Germany declined to 28.2% in November from 34.5% in the previous month.

 

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Tuesday, with the Japan’s Nikkei dropping 2.46% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index declining 1.33%. China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.07%.

The annual inflation rate in Hong Kong came in at 1.8% in November, the same as in the earlier month. The Bank of Japan kept its key short-term interest rate unchanged at -0.1%.

 

Economics

Housing starts in the US fell 0.5% to an annualized rate of 1.427 million in November, while building permits dipped 11.2 percent from a month ago to an annual rate of 1.342 million in November.

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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 101,825,070 cases with around 1,113,300 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,677,340 cases and 530,670 deaths, while France reported over 38,899,900 COVID-19 cases with 160,610 deaths. In total, there were at least 658,535,310 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,674,360 deaths.