Nasdaq Surges Over 3%; Powell Industries Shares Spike Higher

U.S. stocks traded higher toward the end of trading, with the Dow Jones index gaining more than 400 points on Wednesday.

The Dow traded up 1.07% to 41,177.51 while the NASDAQ rose 3.10% to 17,678.79. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 2.08% to 5,549.42.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares jumped by 4.3% on Wednesday.

In trading on Wednesday, health care shares rose by just 0.1%.

Top Headline

Microsoft Corporation MSFT reported better-than-expected earnings and sales results for its fourth quarter on Tuesday.

Intelligent Cloud segment revenue was $28.5 billion, up 19% year-over-year, while Azure and other cloud services revenue posted year-over-year growth of 29% last quarter.

Equities Trading UP
                       

• Powell Industries, Inc. POWL shares shot up 40% to $186.83 after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 GAAP EPS and sales.
• Shares of Modine Manufacturing Company MOD got a boost, surging 24% to $122.84 after the company reported better-than-expected first-quarter financial results.
• Fiverr International Ltd. FVRR shares were also up, gaining 22% to $26.78 after the company reported better-than-expected second-quarter financial results.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Imunon, Inc. IMNN shares dropped 61% to $1.31 after the company announced a $10 million registered direct offering of 5 million shares of common stock with unregistered warrants at a price of $2 per unit.
• Shares of FibroGen, Inc FGEN were down 45% to $0.5640. The company announced topline results from two late-stage trials evaluating the efficacy and safety of pamrevlumab in patients with pancreatic cancer and said its Precision Promise study in metastatic pancreatic cancer did not meet its primary endpoint.
• PepGen Inc. PEPG was down, falling 35% to $11.05. The company announced clinical data from the first dose cohort of PGN-EDO51.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 4.3% to $77.96 while gold traded up 1% at $2,476.40.

Silver traded up 1.5% to $28.945 on Wednesday, while copper rose 2.8% to $4.1965.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 rose 0.80%, Germany's DAX rose 0.53% and France's CAC 40 gained 0.76%. Spain's IBEX 35 Index fell 1.23%, while London's FTSE 100 rose 1.13%.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed higher on Wednesday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 gaining 1.49%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index jumping 2.01% and S&P BSE Sensex gaining 0.35%.

Economics

• U.S. pending home sales rose by 4.8% from the prior month in June compared to a revised contraction of 1.9%.
• U.S. crude oil inventories declined by 3.436 million barrels in the week ended July 26th, above market estimates of a 1.6 million barrel draw.
• Private businesses in the U.S. added 122,000 workers to their payrolls in July, versus a revised 155,000 in June.

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