Nasdaq Rises 70 Points; Aeglea BioTherapeutics Shares Spike Higher

U.S. stocks traded mixed midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining over 70 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded down 0.11% to 33,912.98 while the NASDAQ rose 0.54% to 13,574.90. The S&P 500, also rose, gaining, 0.10% to 4,369.87.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Consumer discretionary shares rose 1.2% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Overstock.com, Inc. OSTK, up 16%, and Vroom, Inc. VRM, up 11%.
• In trading on Thursday, real estate shares dipped by 1.6%.

Top Headline

U.S. initial jobless claims came in at 264,000 for the week ending June 17, unchanged from a revised higher level of 264,000 the prior week and slightly above expectations of 260,000.

Equities Trading UP

• Root, Inc. ROOT shares shot up 38% to $13.29 following a Wall Street Journal report suggesting the company has received a takeover bid.
• Shares of Talaris Therapeutics, Inc. TALS got a boost, shooting 21% to $2.6650 after the company and Tourmaline Bio announced a merger agreement.
• Aeglea BioTherapeutics, Inc. AGLE shares were also up, gaining 384% to $0.5149. Aeglea BioTherapeutics acquired Spyre Therapeutics, a privately-held biotechnology company focused on developing antibody therapeutics for inflammatory bowel disease. As part of the acquisition, Aeglea entered into a definitive agreement for a private placement of Series A non-voting convertible preferred stock, resulting in approximately $210 million in gross proceeds.

Equities Trading DOWN

• AlloVir, Inc. ALVR shares dropped 29% to $3.50 after the company priced a 20 million share offering at $3.75 per share.
• Shares of Avid Bioservices, Inc. CDMO were down 15% to $13.26 after the company issued FY24 revenue guidance below estimates.
• Innovative Eyewear, Inc. LUCY was down, falling 31% to $0.9604 after the company announced pricing of a $4.7 million public offering.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 4.1% to $69.55 while gold traded down 1.1% at $1,924.30.

Silver traded down 1.6% to $22.445 on Thursday while copper fell 0.8% to $3.8835.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.51%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.76% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.76% The German DAX dropped 0.22% French CAC 40 fell 0.79% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.72%.

The manufacturing climate indicator in France climbed to 101 in June versus a 26-month low level of 99 in the previous month.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping 0.92% and India’s S&P BSE Sensex falling 0.4%.

Economics

• U.S. initial jobless claims came in at 264,000 for the week ending June 17, unchanged from a revised higher level of 264,000 the prior week and slightly above expectations of 260,000.
• The U.S. reported a current account gap of $219.3 billion in the first quarter, higher than the revised $216.2 billion gap in the fourth quarter.
• The Chicago Fed National Activity Index fell to -0.15 in May versus a revised reading of 0.14 in April.
• Existing home sales in the US rose 2.3% higher from the prior month to an annual rate of 4.3 million in May.
• U.S. crude oil inventories dropped by 3.831 million barrels in the week ending June 16, versus market expectations of a 0.329 million gain.
• The Kansas City Fed’s Manufacturing Production index declined to -10 in June versus -2 in the prior month.

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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 107,260,950 cases with around 1,167,510 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,993,670 cases and 531,890 deaths, while France reported over 40,128,660 COVID-19 cases with 167,590 deaths. In total, there were at least 690,657,840 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,893,590 deaths.