Dow Jumps Over 100 Points; US Housing Starts Rise In April

U.S. stocks traded higher this morning, with the Dow Jones gaining more than 100 points on Wednesday.

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.37% to 33,135.37 while the NASDAQ rose 0.39% to 12,391.68. The S&P 500, also rose, gaining, 0.45% to 4,128.33.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Consumer discretionary shares rose by 1.2% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included United Homes Group, Inc. UHG, up 21%, and i Purple Innovation, Inc. PRPL, up 9%.
• In trading on Wednesday, health care shares fell 0.4%.

 

Top Headline

U.S. housing starts rose 2.2% month-over-month to an annualized rate of 1.401 million in April, versus market expectations of 1.4 million.

Building permits in the U.S. dropped 1.5% to an annual rate of 1.416 million in April.

 

Equities Trading UP

• Smart for Life, Inc. SMFL shares shot up 46% to $3.38. Smart for Life announced Wednesday that it had executed a strategic agreement with CloudKitchens for rapid local delivery of its new line of innovative, proprietary, and healthy high-protein ice cream bars.
• Shares of GD Culture Group Limited GDC got a boost, shooting 20% to $7.61. The company released its quarterly report in a Form10 filing.
• XBiotech Inc. XBIT shares were also up, gaining 19% to $4.1350. XBiotech commenced tender offer to purchase up to $80 million worth of its shares at price not greater than $4.00 nor less than $3.80 per share.

 

Equities Trading DOWN

• Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ICPT shares dropped 26% to $11.95 following a report suggesting FDA staff concluded Intercept Pharmaceuticals' OCA can cause significant drug-induced liver injury.
• Shares of Kyndryl Holdings, Inc. KD were down 16% to $12.12 after the company reported mixed Q1 financial results and issued FY24 revenue guidance below estimates.
• EVgo, Inc. EVGO was down, falling 13% to $5.01 after the company announced an offering of Class A common stock.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.1% to $70.85 while gold traded down 0.3% at $ 1,987.80.

Silver traded down 0.1% to $23.86 on Wednesday while copper rose 1.5% to $3.7230.

Stocks of crude oil in the US rose by 3.69 million barrels in the latest week, following a 3.618 million barrel growth a week ago, the API said Tuesday.

 

Euro zone

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

The Eurozone’s consumer price inflation increased to 7.0% in April versus the prior month's 13-month low level of 6.9%. Passenger car registrations in the European Union surged 17.2% year-over-year to 803,188 units in April.

Italy recorded a trade surplus of EUR 7.5 billion in March, versus a year-ago gap of EUR 0.8 billion. The unemployment rate in France came in steady at 7.1% for the first quarter.

 

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly lower on Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 0.84%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropping 2.09% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropping 0.21%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.6%.

The Japanese economy grew by 1.6% on an annualized basis in the first quarter, while industrial production in Japan increased by 1.1 % month-over-month in March. Average new home prices in China's major cities declined by 0.2% year-over-year during April. Australia's wage price index rose by 3.7% year-over-year in the first quarter.

 

Economics

• U.S. housing starts rose 2.2% month-over-month to an annualized rate of 1.401 million in April, versus market expectations of 1.4 million.
• Building permits in the U.S. dropped 1.5% to an annual rate of 1.416 million in April.

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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 106,831,280 cases with around 1,163,290 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,983,150 cases and 531,790 deaths, while France reported over 40,050,710 COVID-19 cases with 167,050 deaths. In total, there were at least 688,507,400 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,875,780 deaths.