Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Higher; Morgan Stanley Beats Q3 Views

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.32% to 27089.02 while the NASDAQ rose 0.63% to 8175.54. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.57% to 3006.72.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Industrial shares climbed 0.9% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Dover Corporation DOV, up 7%, and United Rentals, Inc. URI, up 6%.

In trading on Thursday, utilities shares rose by just 0.1%.

Top Headline

Morgan Stanley MS reported better-than-expected Q3 EPS and sales results.

Morgan Stanley reported third-quarter earnings of $1.27 per share, which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $1.11 per share. The company reported sales of $10.03, versus expectations of $9.6 billion.


Equities Trading UP

Hepion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. HEPA shares shot up 50% to $3.75 after the company announced the publication of a research article, "A Pan-Cyclophilin Inhibitor, CRV431, Decreases Fibrosis and Tumor Development in Chronic Liver Disease Models," in the peer-reviewed Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

Shares of Future FinTech Group Inc. FTFT surged 63% to $1.20 after the company announced it regained compliance with Nasdaq periodic filing requirement.

Synthesis Energy Systems, Inc. SES was up, rising 31% to $9.52 after surging 12.24% on Wednesday.

Equities Trading DOWN

Datasea Inc. DTSS shares tumbled 36% to $1.91 after dropping 10.78% on Wednesday.

Shares of Bionano Genomics, Inc. BNGO were down 30% to $1.9851 after the company reported a 5.3 million share offering of common stock and warrants.

Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. SYRS was down, falling 29% to $7.16 after the company announced plans to discontinue development of SY-1365 intravenous CDK7 inhibitor to focus on SY-5609.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 0.5% to $53.12, while gold traded down 0.3% to $1,489.80.

Silver traded up 0.2% Thursday to $17.46, while copper rose 0.6% to $2.604.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.5%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.7%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.6%. Meanwhile, the German DAX gained 0.6%, and the French CAC 40 climbed 0.2% while UK shares rose 0.5%

Economics

US housing starts dropped 9.4% to an annual rate of 1,256 thousand units in September. Building permits fell 2.7 percent to an annual rate of 1,387 thousand.

U.S. initial jobless claims rose by 4,000 to 214,000 in the week ended October 12. However, economists were expecting a reading of 212,000.

The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index declined 6.4 points to a reading of 5.6 in October.

U.S. industrial production fell 0.4% for September, versus economists’ expectations for a 0.1% decline.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on petroleum inventories is schedule for release at 11:00 a.m. ET.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is schedule for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 8-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Member of the Board of Governors Michelle Bowman is set to speak in Chicago, Illinois at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans will speak in Chicago, Illinois at 2:00 p.m. ET.

New York Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams is set to speak in New York at 4:20 p.m. ET.

Data on money supply for the recent week will be released at 4:30 p.m. ET.