Crude Oil Falls Over 1%; First Wave BioPharma Shares Spike Higher

U.S. stocks traded mixed toward the end of trading, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite moving lower on Wednesday.

The Dow traded up 0.05% to 37,564.54 while the NASDAQ fell 0.04% to 15,069.30. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.08% to 4,771.01.

Check This Out: Over $2M Bet On This Energy Stock? Check Out These 3 Stocks Insiders Are Buying

 

Leading and Lagging Sectors

 

Consumer discretionary shares jumped by 0.4% on Wednesday.

In trading on Wednesday, energy shares fell by 0.2%.

 

Top Headline

 

The Manufacturing Activity Index in the Richmond area fell to -11 in December, recording the lowest reading in ten months and versus a reading of -5 in the prior month.

 

Equities Trading UP

 

First Wave BioPharma, Inc. FWBI shares shot up 70% to $6.27 after the company announced that it entered a non-binding term sheet to sell its Niclosamide program for the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases.

Shares of Cytokinetics, Incorporated CYTK got a boost, surging 78% to $81.40 after the company announced topline results from SEQUOIA-HCM, the Phase 3 clinical trial of aficamten in patients with symptomatic obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Coherus BioSciences, Inc. CHRS shares were also up, gaining 26% to $2.75 after the company reported the FDA approval of UDENYCA ONBODY for pegfilgrastim-cbqv.

 

Equities Trading DOWN

 

Hallmark Financial Services, Inc. HALL shares dropped 33% to $1.05.
Hallmark Financial Services gave notice to Nasdaq of intention to voluntarily delist its shares of common stock from Nasdaq Global Market.

Shares of Bluejay Diagnostics, Inc. BJDX were down 25% to $1.9499. Bluejay Diagnostics announced initiation of multicenter clinical study evaluating symphony IL-6 in sepsis patients.

Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. IOVA was down, falling 24% to $6.78 after the FDA placed a clinical hold on the IOV-LUN-202 trial in response to a recently reported Grade 5 adverse event potentially related to the non-myeloablative lymphodepletion pre-conditioning regimen.

Also Check This Out: Top 3 Consumer Stocks Which Could Rescue Your Portfolio This Month

 

Commodities

 

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.4% to $74.48 while gold traded up 1.2% at $2,095.00.

Silver traded up 1.2% to $24.695 on Wednesday while copper rose 1.5% to $3.9615.

 

Euro zone

 

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.21%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.36% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.10% The German DAX rose 0.21% French CAC 40 rose 0.04%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index gained 0.22%.

 

Asia Pacific Markets

 

Asian markets closed higher on Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 1.13%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rising 1.74% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index gaining 0.54%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex, meanwhile, rose 0.98%.

Japan's housing starts fell by 8.5% year-over-year in November following a 6.3% decline in the earlier month. Profits earned by Chinese industrial firms fell by 4.4% year-over-year to CNY 6,982.28 billion during the first eleven months of the year. Producer prices in Malaysia fell by 1.5% year-over-year in November.

 

Economics

 

The Manufacturing Activity Index in the Richmond area fell to -11 in December, recording the lowest reading in ten months and versus a reading of -5 in the prior month.

The US Fifth District Survey of Service Sector Activity's revenues index fell to 0 in December compared to November’s reading of 1.

Now Read This: Amazon, Adobe And 2 Other Stocks Insiders Are Selling