Dow Surges Over 300 Points; Kroger Profit Beats Views

U.S. stocks traded higher midway through trading, with Dow Jones gaining more than 300 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.98% to 34,313.85 while the NASDAQ rose 0.73% to 13,726.16. The S&P 500, also rose, gaining, 0.81% to 4,408.03.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Energy shares jumped by 1.4% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc. PTEN, up 12%, and Tellurian Inc. TELL, up 7%.
• In trading on Thursday, real estate shares fell by 0.4%.

Top Headline

The Kroger Co. KR posted better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter, while sales missed estimates.

Kroger reported first-quarter FY23 sales growth of 1.3% year-on-year to $45.16 billion, missing the analyst consensus of $45.24 billion. Adjusted EPS of $1.51 beat the analyst consensus of $1.46.

Equities Trading UP

• EdtechX Holdings Acquisition Corp. II EDTX shares shot up 120% to $24.30. EdtechX Holdings Acquisition Corp II reported an amendment to extend date to consummate a business combination from June 15, 2023 to Dec. 15, 2023.
• Shares of VIQ Solutions Inc. VQS got a boost, shooting 21% to $0.3176 after the company partnered with Justice AV Solutions to bring AI-generated draft transcripts of courtroom proceedings.
• AMMO, Inc. POWW shares were also up, gaining 21% to $2.47 after the company posted upbeat quarterly results.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Mersana Therapeutics, Inc. MRSN shares dropped 58% to $3.9795 after the FDA issued a partial clinical hold pausing new patient enrollment in the company's UP-NEXT and UPGRADE-A ovarian cancer trials.
• Shares of Bone Biologics Corporation BBLG were down 53% to $1.83 after the company priced its public offering of 2.54 million shares at $1.97 per share.
• OncoSec Medical Incorporated ONCS was down, falling 49% to $0.2197. OncoSec Medical filed voluntary petition for relief under bankruptcy. The company also said Robert Arch tendered his resignation as company's President and CEO effective on June 14.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.8% to $69.52 while gold traded down 0.1% at $1,967.00.

Silver traded down 1% to $23.86 on Thursday while copper rose 0.6% to $3.8915.

Euro zone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.23%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.19% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index gained 0.01% The German DAX dropped 0.2% French CAC 40 fell 0.57% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.38%.

The European Central Bank increased interest rates by 25 basis points during its June meeting. The Eurozone recorded a deficit of EUR 11.7 billion in April versus a year-ago gap of EUR 34.5 billion.

Spanish trade deficit shrank to EUR 4.38 billion in April from EUR 6.39 billion in the year-ago month. French consumer price inflation was confirmed at 5.1% year-over-year in May, recording the lowest level since April 2022.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping 0.05%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gaining 2.17% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index gaining 0.74%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.5%.

India's merchandise trade deficit shrank to $22.12 billion in May from $24.29 billion in the year-ago month. Manufacturing production in Hong Kong surged 3.9% year-over-year in the first quarter versus a 0.1% drop in the prior period. Japan's trade deficit narrowed to JPY 1,372.5 billion in May from JPY 2,366.1 billion in the year-ago month.

Chinese retail sales climbed by 12.7% year-over-year in May, while unemployment rate came in unchanged at 5.2% in May. China's industrial production surged by 3.5% year-over-year in May. The People’s Bank of China cut the one-year medium-term lending facility rate by 10 basis points to 2.65%, while Hong Kong Monetary Authority held its base rate unchanged at 5.5%.

Economics

• The NY Empire State Manufacturing Index jumped 38 points to a reading of +6.6 in June.
• U.S. jobless claims came in unchanged at 262,000 in the week ending June 10, versus the previous week’s revised value. However, analysts were expecting a reading of 249,000.
• Retail sales in the U.S. increased 0.3% month-over-month in May versus a 0.4% growth in April, and topping market expectations for a 0.1% drop.
• Export prices in the U.S. fell 1.9% month-over-month in May, while import prices fell 0.6% during the month.
• Industrial production in the U.S. declined 0.2% from a month ago in May, missing market estimates of a 0.1% growth.
• U.S. business inventories increased by 0.2% from a month ago in April.
• U.S. natural-gas supplies increased 84 billion cubic feet last week, the EIA said.

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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 107,198,300 cases with around 1,166,860 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,993,180 cases and 531,890 deaths, while France reported over 40,118,610 COVID-19 cases with 167,500 deaths. In total, there were at least 690,356,740 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,891,280 deaths.