Dow Tumbles Over 200 Points; Chicago PMI Drops In May

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones dropping over 200 points on Wednesday.

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded down 0.68% to 32,817.80 while the NASDAQ fell 0.45% to 12,958.21. The S&P 500, also fell, dropping, 0.65% to 4,178.26.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Communication services shares rose by 0.1% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Loop Media, Inc. LPTV, up 10%, and Tremor International Ltd TRMR, up 4%.
• In trading on Wednesday, financial shares fell 1.5%.

Top Headline

The Chicago PMI declined to 40.4 points in May versus 48.6 in April.

Equities Trading UP

• SunCar Technology Group Inc. SDA shares shot up 50% to $29.04.
• Shares of CXApp Inc. CXAI got a boost, shooting 21% to $13.50.
• LL Flooring Holdings, Inc. LL shares were also up, gaining 19% to $4.94. LL Flooring confirmed the receipt of $5.76 per share unsolicited, non-binding proposal from Cabinets To Go, a subsidiary of F9 Brands.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Belite Bio, Inc BLTE shares dropped 36% to $14.96 after the company reported pricing of a $30 million underwritten public offering of ADSs and warrants.
• Shares of Advance Auto Parts, Inc. AAP were down 32% to $76.06 after the company reported worse-than-expected first-quarter financial results and cut FY23 guidance below estimates.
• Sportsman's Warehouse Holdings, Inc. SPWH was down, falling 16% to $4.61 as the company posted a wider-than-expected loss for its first quarter and issued weak forecast for the current quarter.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.3% to $68.53 while gold traded up 0.2% at $1,980.80.

Silver traded up 0.4% to $23.325 on Wednesday while copper fell 0.8% to $3.6325.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.7%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.5% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.9% The German DAX slipped 1% French CAC 40 fell 1.3% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 1.6%.

The annual inflation rate in Italy declined to 7.6% in May from 8.2% in the prior month, while GDP grew by 0.6% quarter-on-quarter during the three months to March 2023. Spain reported a current account surplus of €5575 million in March, recording the highest surplus since July 2016.

The unemployment rate in Germany was steady at 5.6% during May. The French economy expanded 0.2% on quarter in the first quarter, while producer prices fell 5.1% month-over-month in April. The consumer price inflation in France dropped to 5.1 % year-over-year for May.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping 1.41%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index declining 1.94% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.61%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.6%.

Japan's housing starts fell by 11.9% year-over-year in April versus aa 3.2% decline in the previous month, while consumer confidence index in Japan rose to 36 in May from 35.4 a month ago. Retail sales in Japan rose by 5% year-over-year in April, while industrial production fell by 0.4 % month-over-month during April.

The official NBS non-manufacturing PMI for China fell to 54.5 in May from 56.4 in the previous month, while official NBS manufacturing PMI declined to a five-month low level of 48.8 in May.

Economics

• The Chicago PMI declined to 40.4 points in May versus 48.6 in April.
• The number of job vacancies in the U.S. rose by 358 thousand to 10.1 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 107,107,490 cases with around 1,165,310 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,990,580 cases and 531,870 deaths, while France reported over 40,081,380 COVID-19 cases with 167,310 deaths. In total, there were at least 689,549,940 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,884,630 deaths.