Crude Oil Down 1%; Dollar Tree Shares Tumble After Downbeat Earnings

U.S. stocks traded mixed midway through trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining around 0.2% on Wednesday.

The Dow traded down 0.08% to 40,906.17 while the NASDAQ rose 0.21% to 17,172.66. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.03% to 5,527.51.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Utilities shares climbed by 0.6% on Wednesday.

In trading on Wednesday, energy shares fell by 0.9%.

Top Headline

Shares of Dollar Tree, Inc DLTR dipped over 21% on Wednesday after the company reported worse-than-expected second-quarter 2024 earnings.

The discount variety stores chain reported an adjusted EPS of 67 cents, missing the consensus of $1.04, and down 26.4% year over year. The company reported sales of $7.38 billion, up marginally by 0.07%, missing the consensus of $7.5 billion.

Equities Trading UP
                       

• Faraday Future Intelligent Electric Inc. FFIE shares shot up 43% to $4.8986.
• Shares of Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc. ATRA got a boost, surging 32% to $9.00. The company announced a $36 million registered direct offering of 758,900 shares at $8.25 per share.
• WiSA Technologies, Inc. WISA shares were also up, gaining 69% to $2.30 after the company announced that it executed a definitive asset purchase agreement to purchase the Datavault intellectual property and information technology assets of privately held Data Vault Holdings for $210 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Athira Pharma, Inc. ATHA shares dropped 78% to $0.6361 after the company released topline results from its Phase 2/3 LIFT-AD clinical trial of fosgonimeton for mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD).
• Shares of Oragenics, Inc. OGEN were down 45% to $0.59. Oragenics priced its $4.45 million public offering of 8,106,584 shares at $0.55 per share.
• Psyence Biomedical Ltd. PBM was down, falling 33% to $0.2482. The company announced it entered into a worldwide, exclusive royalty-bearing IP licensing agreement with PsyLabs.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1% to $69.68 while gold traded up 0.2% at $2,527.20.

Silver traded up 0.9% to $28.595 on Wednesday, while copper fell 0.3% to $4.0805.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 fell 0.97%, Germany's DAX fell 0.83% and France's CAC 40 fell 0.98%. Spain's IBEX 35 Index fell 0.58%, while London's FTSE 100 fell 0.35%.

The S&P Global UK services PMI climbed to 53.7 in August from 52.5 in the prior month. Producer prices in the Eurozone rose 0.8% month-over-month in July versus a revised 0.6% increase in June. The HCOB Eurozone composite PMI was revised lower to 51 in August versus a flash reading of 51.2.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Wednesday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 falling 4.24%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index falling 1.10%, China's Shanghai Composite Index declining 0.67% and India's BSE Sensex falling 0.25%.

The HSBC India Composite PMI rose to 60.7 in August versus a flash reading of 60.5. Caixin China General Composite PMI came in unchanged at 51.2 in August.

Economics

The trade deficit in the U.S. increased to $78.8 billion in July, recording the biggest gap since June 2022, versus a gap of $73 billion in June.

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