Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Cleveland-Cliffs To Acquire AK Steel For $3.36/Share

Following the market opening Tuesday, the Dow traded down 1.53% to 27,357.61 while the NASDAQ fell 1.31% to 8,455.59. The S&P also fell, dropping 1.30% to 3,073.52.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Real estate shares climbed 0.4% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Industrial Logistics Properties Trust ILPT, up 6%, and Q&K International Group Ltd - ADR QK, up 5%.

In trading on Tuesday, information technology shares fell 1.6%.

Top Headline

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc CLF announced plans to acquire AK Steel Holding Corporation AKS for $1.1 billion, or $3.36 per share.

Equities Trading UP

Audentes Therapeutics, Inc. BOLD shares shot up 106% to $58.91 after the company agreed to be acquired by Astellas Pharma for $60 per share in cash.

Shares of DarioHealth Corp. DRIO got a boost, shooting up 64% to $8.20 after the company reported the launch of Dario-powered digital diabetes program on Walmart.com.

ViewRay, Inc. VRAY shares were also up, gaining 33% to $4.5150 after the company announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding for collaboration with Elekta AB and Medtronic. The company also announced a $75 million common stock offering.

Equities Trading DOWN

ASLAN Pharmaceuticals Limited ASLN shares tumbled 47% to $2.78 after the company priced a 5.2 million ADS offering at $2.50 per ADS.

Shares of Cara Therapeutics, Inc. CARA were down 29% to $18.49 after the company reported mixed results from its Phase 2 trial of Oral Korsuva in chronic kidney disease patients with moderate-to-severe pruritus.

Aldeyra Therapeutics, Inc. ALDX was down, falling 28% to $5.37 after the company announced positive top-line results from Part 1 of the adaptive Phase 3 study dubbed RENEW, which evaluated ADX-102 (topical ocular reproxalap) for dry eye syndrome. ADX-102 was found statistically superior to vehicle in Ocular Discomfort &4-Symptom Questionnaire ocular endpoints for dryness, discomfort, burning, grittiness and stinging. For the co-primary endpoint of fluorescein nasal region ocular staining, it did not reach statistical significance.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 0.1% to $55.91, while gold traded up 0.4% to $1,475.60.

Silver traded up 0.7% Tuesday to $17.085, while copper fell 0.5% to $2.6375.

Euro zone


European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.1%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.3%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.8%. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 0.6%, and the French CAC 40 fell 0.3% while UK shares fell 1%.

Economics

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index rose 0.4% during the first four weeks of November versus October.

The Treasury is set to auction 52-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.