Nasdaq Down 100 Points; Advance Auto Parts Earnings Miss Views

U.S. stocks traded lower midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite dropping over 100 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded down 0.82% to 32,773.27 while the NASDAQ fell 0.86% to 12,905.49. The S&P 500, also fell, dropping, 0.88% to 4,168.38.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Consumer staples shares rose by 0.2% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included BRF S.A. BRFS, up 6%, and Yatsen Holding Limited YSG, up 5%.
• In trading on Wednesday, consumer discretionary shares dipped 2.1%.

Top Headline

Advance Auto Parts, Inc. AAP reported worse-than-expected first-quarter financial results. The company also reduced its full-year guidance and decided to reduce its quarterly dividend.

AAP reported first-quarter FY23 sales growth of 1.3% year-on-year to $3.42 billion, missing the analyst consensus estimate of $3.43 billion. Earnings of 72 cents per share missed the analyst consensus of $2.57 per share.

Equities Trading UP

• Aridis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ARDS shares shot up 126% to $0.4190 after the company announced it received agreement from the FDA on its proposed single confirmatory Phase 3 study of AR-301 and the clinical study design.
• Shares of Marker Therapeutics, Inc. MRKR got a boost, shooting 24% to $1.63 after the company reported pre-clinical data of its MT-601 multiTAA-specific T cell product candidate MT-601 in lymphoma cells.
• VistaGen Therapeutics, Inc. VTGN shares were also up, gaining 23% to $0.1646 after the company announced it will present fasedienol safety and exploratory efficacy data from its Phase 3 open-label social anxiety disorder study at the ASCP 2023 Annual Meeting.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Belite Bio, Inc BLTE shares dropped 35% to $15.35 after the company reported pricing of a $30 million underwritten public offering of ADSs and warrants.
• Shares of Panbela Therapeutics, Inc. PBLA were down 37% to $0.2145. Panbela announced a 1-for-30 reverse stock split effective June 1, 2023.
• QualTek Services Inc. QTEK was down, falling 43% to $0.0857 after the company received Nasdaq delisting notice.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.9% to $68.83 while gold traded up 0.6% at $1,988.00.

Silver traded up 1.5% to $23.575 on Wednesday while copper fell 0.6% to $3.6395.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.99%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.88% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.22% The German DAX slipped 1.55% French CAC 40 fell 1.57% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 1.88%.

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.