Nasdaq Moves Lower; Acuity Brands Earnings Top Estimates

U.S. stocks traded higher toward the end of trading, with the Dow Jones gaining more than 200 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.68% to 34,081.83 while the NASDAQ fell 0.23% to 13,560.57. The S&P 500, also rose, gaining, 0.28% to 4,389.22.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Financials shares jumped by 1.5% on Thursday.

In trading on Thursday, communication services shares fell by 0.6%.

Top Headline

Acuity Brands, Inc AYI reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter on Thursday.

Acuity Brands reported a third-quarter FY23 net sales decline of 5.7% year-over-year to $1.0 billion, missing the consensus of $1.05 billion. Adjusted EPS of $3.75 beat the consensus of $3.71.

Equities Trading UP

• Sigilon Therapeutics, Inc. SGTX shares shot up 505% to $23.67 after Eli Lilly agreed to acquire the company for $14.92/share in cash.
• Shares of Eco Wave Power Global AB WAVE got a boost, shooting 23% to $1.9206 after the company announced plans for a share repurchase program of up to 10% of the total number of shares in the company.
• Immunome, Inc. IMNM shares were also up, gaining 34% to $7.90 after the company and Morphimmune announced a definitive merger agreement and simultaneous private placement investment of $125 million to develop targeted cancer therapies.

Equities Trading DOWN

• BioXcel Therapeutics, Inc. BTAI shares dropped 66% to $6.08 after the company released topline results from TRANQUILITY II Phase 3 trial of BXCL501 for acute treatment of Alzheimer's Disease-related agitation.
• Shares of Greenlane Holdings, Inc. GNLN were down 25% to $1.00 after announcing a $4 million public offering.
• Mobiquity Technologies, Inc. MOBQ was down, falling 27% to $0.1099 after the company reported pricing of $3 million public offering of 30 million shares of common stock at a price of $0.10/share.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.2% to $69.73 while gold traded down 0.3% at $1,917.00.

Silver traded down 1.2% to $22.81 on Wednesday while copper fell 1.1% to $3.70.

Euro zone

European shares closed mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.13%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.38% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.31% The German DAX fell 0.01% French CAC 40 rose 0.36% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 1.05%.

The services confidence indicator in the Eurozone fell for a second straight month to 5.7 in June, while industry confidence indicator dropped for a fifth consecutive month to -7.2 in June. The consumer confidence indicator in was confirmed at -16.1 for the month, while economic sentiment indicator fell for a second month in a row to 95.3 in June.

Consumer credit in the UK rose by £1.144 billion in May versus a revised £1.513 billion growth in April. Spain's consumer price inflation fell to 1.9% year-over-year in June.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 0.12%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 1.24%, China’s Shanghai Composite Index slipping 0.22%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex gained 0.8%.

The consumer confidence index in Japan rose to 36.2 in June versus 36 in the prior month, while retail sales rose by 5.7% year-over-year in May. Retail sales in Australia climbed by 0.7% month-over-month to AUD 35.52 billion in May.

Economics

• Corporate profits in the U.S. dropped by 5.9% to $2.329 trillion in the first quarter.
• U.S. initial jobless claims declined by 26,000 from the previous week's 20-month high level to 239,000 during the week ending June 24, recording the sharpest drop since October 2021. However, markets were expecting a reading of 265,000.
• The U.S. economy expanded by an annualized rate of 2% on quarter in the first quarter, higher than the 1.3% growth in the second estimate, and market expectations of 1.4%.
• U.S. natural-gas supplies increased 76 billion cubic feet during the week ended June 23.

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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 107,303,870 cases with around 1,168,100 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,994,140 cases and 531,900 deaths, while France reported over 40,136,340 COVID-19 cases with 167,640 deaths. In total, there were at least 690,913,300 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,895,340 deaths.