Dow Down 150 Points; US Durable Goods Orders Drop In February

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones dropping around 150 points on Friday.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded down 0.50% to 31,944.01 while the NASDAQ fell 0.52% to 11,726.02. The S&P 500, also fell, dropping, 0.53% to 3,927.90.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Consumer staples shares rose by 0.4% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Vital Farms, Inc. VITL, up 4%, and Calavo Growers, Inc. CVGW, up 7%.
• In trading on Friday, energy shares fell by 1.9%.

Top Headline

US durable goods orders fell 1% month-over-month in February versus a revised 5% drop in January.

Equities Trading UP

• Near Intelligence Inc. NIR shares shot up 46% to $15.69.
• Shares of Torrid Holdings Inc. CURV got a boost, shooting 21% to $2.88 after the company reported Q4 results.
• ADMA Biologics, Inc. ADMA shares were also up, gaining 8% to $3.3650 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 sales results and issued FY23 revenue guidance above estimates.

Equities Trading DOWN

• FiscalNote Holdings, Inc. NOTE shares tumbled 17% to $1.9700. FiscalNote shares jumped 75% on Thursday after the company announced it was selected by OpenAI for collaboration as an inaugural launch partner for OpenAI's ChatGPT plug-in.
• Shares of Farfetch Limited FTCH were down 8% to $4.30. Citigroup maintained Farfetch with a Sell and lowered the price target from $6 to $4.
• Uranium Energy Corp. UEC was down, falling 10% to $2.4607. Kerrisdale Capital recently issued a short report on the stock.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 2.4% to $68.29 while gold traded up 0.2% at $ 2,000.60.

Silver traded up 1.3% to $23.555 on Friday while copper fell 1.1% to $4.0765.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.6%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.5% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index tumbled 2.3%. The German DAX declined 2.1%, French CAC 40 dipped 2% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 2.3%.

The S&P Global Eurozone manufacturing PMI dropped to 47.1 in March versus a reading of 48.5 in February, while services PMI climbed to 55.6 from 52.7. The S&P Global German composite PMI climbed to 52.6 in March from 50.7 in the prior month, while French composite PMI jumped to 54 from 51.7.

The S&P Global/CIPS UK services PMI fell to 52.8 in March from 53.5 in February, while manufacturing PMI slipped to 48 from 49.3. Retail sales in the UK increased 1.2% month-over-month in February. Spanish gross domestic product grew by 0.2% quarter-over-quarter during the last three months of 2022.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping 0.13%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 0.67% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index declining 0.64%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.6%.

Japanese services PMI climbed to 54.2 in March versus a final reading of 54.0 in February, while manufacturing PMI rose to 48.6 from 47.7. The annual inflation rate in Japan eased to 3.3% in February compared to January's 41-year high level of 4.3%.

Economics

US durable goods orders fell 1% month-over-month in February versus a revised 5% drop in January.

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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 106,082,750 cases with around 1,153,520 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,700,660 cases and 530,810 deaths, while France reported over 39,735,270 COVID-19 cases with 165,450 deaths. In total, there were at least 683,084,700 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,824,490 deaths.