US Stocks Edge Higher; TJX Posts Upbeat Sales

U.S. stocks traded slightly higher this morning, with the Dow Jones gaining 0.1% on Wednesday.

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.09% to 33,157.87 while the NASDAQ rose 0.32% to 11,529.56. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.10% to 4,001.40.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Consumer discretionary shares rose around 1% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included ECARX Holdings Inc. ECX, up 25%, and La-Z-Boy Incorporated LZB, up 15%.
• In trading on Wednesday, energy shares fell by 0.2%.

Top Headline

The TJX Companies, Inc. TJX reported better-than-expected sales results for its fourth quarter.

The company posted sales growth of 5% year-on-year to $14.52 billion, beating the consensus of $14.06 billion. EPS of $0.89 was in-line with the consensus estimate.

The company expects FY24 adjusted EPS of $3.29 - $3.41 against the consensus of $3.56.

Equities Trading UP

• Hoth Therapeutics, Inc. HOTH shares shot up 28% to $3.3277 after dropping over 9% on Tuesday. Hoth Therapeutics recently entered into a service agreement with Shareholder Intelligence Services to investigate and report on potential illegal naked short selling activities of its stock.
• Shares of Berry Corporation BRY got a boost, shooting 20% to $10.53 after reporting better-than-expected Q4 results.
• Fiverr International Ltd. FVRR shares were also up, gaining 16% to $44.00 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 earnings results and issued guidance.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Esports Entertainment Group, Inc. GMBL shares tumbled 30% to $4.1147. Esports Entertainment Group announced a 1-for-100 reverse stock split.
• Shares of Amesite Inc. AMST were down 19% to $3.34. Amesite announced a 1-for-12 reverse stock split.
• ZipRecruiter, Inc. ZIP was down, falling 18% to $18.97 after the company reported a 4% year-over-year decrease in Q4 revenue.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1% to $75.63 while gold traded up 0.2% at $1,846.00.

Silver traded down 0.6% to $21.755 on Wednesday while copper fell 1.2% to $4.1755.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.4%, London’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.7% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.9%. The German DAX declined 0.2% French CAC 40 fell 0.3% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 1.2%.

The annual consumer price inflation in Italy declined to 10% in January from 11.6% in the prior month. The Ifo Business Climate indicator for Germany rose to an eight-month high level of 91.1 in February. Annual inflation rate in Germany increased to 8.7% in January versus a revised 8.1% in the previous month.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping 1.34%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 0.51% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropping 0.47%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex dropped 1.5%.

Hong Kong’s economy contracted 4.2% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. Australian wage price index rose by 3.3% year-over-year in Q4.

Economics

• Mortgage applications in the US dipped 13.3% in the week ended Feb. 17, 2023, versus a 7.7% drop in the prior week.
• The Federal Reserve will release minutes of its latest meeting at 2:00 p.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 105,020,460 cases with around 1,142,980 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,685,250 cases and 530,760 deaths, while France reported over 39,595,960 COVID-19 cases with 164,790 deaths. In total, there were at least 678,954,040 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,792,690 deaths.