Crude Oil Rises Sharply; Unifirst Earnings Miss Expectations

U.S. stocks traded mixed toward the end of trading, with the Dow Jones dropping around 100 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded down 0.32% to 33,818.48 while the NASDAQ rose 0.23% to 13,586.93. The S&P 500, also fell, dropping, 0.07% to 4,375.21.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Energy shares jumped by 1% on Wednesday.
• In trading on Wednesday, utilities shares fell by 1.4%.

Top Headline

Unifirst Corporation UNF reported worse-than-expected third-quarter earnings and issued FY23 EPS guidance below estimates.

Unifirst reported third-quarter FY23 sales growth of 12.7% year-on-year, to $576.67 million, beating the consensus of $564.18 million. Adjusted EPS of $1.66 missed the analyst consensus of $1.79.

UniFirst raised FY23 revenue guidance. The company expects revenues of $2.22 billion-$2.23 billion (prior view $2.210 billion - $2.220 billion) versus a $2.22 billion estimate. The company continues to expect EPS of $5.02-$5.37 versus a $7.13 estimate.

Equities Trading UP

• Kaleyra, Inc. KLR shares shot up 39% to $6.70 after Tata Communications Limited announced it has entered an agreement to acquire the company.
• Shares of Minerva Neurosciences, Inc. NERV got a boost, shooting 61% to $9.68. Minerva Neurosciences announced $20 million in private placement priced at a premium to market.
• Joby Aviation, Inc. JOBY shares were also up, gaining 41% to $9.04 after the company announced it received a permit that allows the company to begin flight testing of its first production prototype.

Equities Trading DOWN

• AST SpaceMobile, Inc. ASTS shares dropped 26% to $4.72 after the company announced pricing of an upsized offering of Class A common stock.
• Shares of Sonnet BioTherapeutics Holdings, Inc. SONN were down 21% to $0.5347 after announcing $2.25 million registered direct offering of 5 million at $0.45/share.
• Cognition Therapeutics, Inc. CGTX was down, falling 20% to $2.0008 after the company released topline data from Phase 2 SEQUEL Study Of CT1812 in 16 adults with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2.8% to $69.61 while gold traded down 0.1% at $1,921.90.

Silver traded down 0.5% to $22.845 on Wednesday while copper fell 1.6% to $3.7295.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.70%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.52% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.94% The German DAX gained 0.64% French CAC 40 rose 0.98% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.86%.

Bank lending to households in the Eurozone rose by 2.1% year-over-year to EUR 6.87 trillion in May. German GfK Consumer Climate Indicator fell to a reading of -25.4 heading into July versus a revised level of -24.4 in the earlier month.

Industrial producer prices in Italy dropped by 4.3% year-over-year in May, while annual inflation rate in Italy eased to 6.4% in June, the lowest in fourteen months. Retail sales in Spain climbed by 6% year-over-year in May, while consumer confidence indicator in France rose to 85 in June from 83 in the prior month.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly higher on Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumping 2.02%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gaining 0.12%, China’s Shanghai Composite Index slipping 0.01%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex jumped 1.6%.

Profits earned by China's industrial firms dipped by 18.8% year-over-year to CNY 2,668.89 billion during the first five months of the year.

Economics

• Mortgage applications in the U.S. increased 3% in the week ended June 23, 2023.
• The U.S. trade deficit in goods shrank to $91.1 billion in May versus a revised $97.1 billion in the prior month.
• Wholesale inventories fell 0.1% month-over-month in May versus a 0.3% decline in April.
• US crude oil inventories dropped by 9.603 million barrels in the week ending June 23, versus market estimates of a 1.757 million decline.

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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 107,298,300 cases with around 1,168,040 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,994,030 cases and 531,900 deaths, while France reported over 40,135,200 COVID-19 cases with 167,640 deaths. In total, there were at least 690,892,530 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,895,110 deaths.