Nasdaq Surges 100 Points; US Producer Prices Drop In March

U.S. stocks traded mostly higher this morning, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining around 100 points on Thursday.

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.01% to 33,650.06 while the NASDAQ rose 0.83% to 12,028.22. The S&P 500, also rose, gaining, 0.27% to 4,103.10.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Communication services shares rose by 1.6% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Consolidated Communications Holdings, Inc. CNSL, up 40%, and Nexters Inc. GDEV, up 14%.
• In trading on Thursday, industrials fell by 0.5%.

Top Headline

Producer prices for final demand declined 0.5% month-over-month in March, recording the biggest drop since April 2020.

Equities Trading UP

• Consolidated Communications Holdings, Inc. CNSL shares shot up 37% to $3.79 after Searchlight Capital and BCI submitted a non-binding proposal to acquire all outstanding shares of Consolidated Communications not owned by Searchlight or BCI for $4 per share.
• Shares of Ocean Biomedical, Inc. OCEA got a boost, shooting 22% to $5.49. Ocean Biomedical’s co-founder, Jonathan Kurtis, has received a Notice of Allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for his U.S. patent application covering a therapeutic and prophylactic monoclonal antibody that kills falciparum malaria parasites.
• bluebird bio, Inc. BLUE shares were also up, gaining 15% to $3.20.

Equities Trading DOWN

• GlucoTrack, Inc. GCTK shares dropped 50% to $1.34 after the company priced 7,352,942 share offering at $1.36 per share.
• Shares of ViewRay, Inc. VRAY were down 32% to $2.0550 after the company lowered its FY23 revenue guidance to approximately 0%-15% growth compared to its guidance of 25%-40% growth and announced it will explore strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value.
• Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings, Inc. SPWH was down, falling 22% to $6.45 after the company issued weak Q1 guidance and announced CEO Jon Barker will retire.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.6% to $82.78 while gold traded up 1.7% at $2,058.30.

Silver traded up 1.9% to $25.95 on Thursday while copper rose 1.3% to $4.1335.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.2%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.1% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.2%. The German DAX fell 0.1%, French CAC 40 rose 0.9% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.3%.

Industrial production in the Eurozone increased by 1.5% from a month ago in February, while industrial production in Italy slipped 0.2% from a month earlier. German consumer price inflation came in at 7.4% year-over-year in March.

The UK trade deficit increased to £4.81 billion in February from a revised £3.49 billion gap in the prior month, while industrial production dropped 0.2% month-over-month in February. The UK economy stalled in February versus a revised 0.4% expansion in January.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly higher on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 0.26%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gaining 0.17% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropping 0.27%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.1%.

China's trade surplus increased to $88.19 billion in March from $44.35 billion in the year-ago. Australian unemployment rate came in unchanged at 3.5% in March. Indian merchandise trade deficit increased to $19.70 billion in March from $18.51 billion in the year-ago month.

Economics

• Producer prices for final demand declined 0.5% month-over-month in March, recording the biggest drop since April 2020.
• U.S. jobless claims climbed by 11 thousand to 239 thousand in the week ending April 8, 2023.

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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 106,418,590 cases with around 1,157,460 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,786,160 cases and 531,030 deaths, while France reported over 39,867,460 COVID-19 cases with 165,910 deaths. In total, there were at least 685,297,580 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,840,150 deaths.