Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Jumps Over 100 Points; Denali Therapeutics Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.42% to 27316.16 while the NASDAQ rose 0.69% to 11074.09. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.42% to 3,341.62.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 4,824,170 cases with around 158,260 deaths. Brazil confirmed a total of over 2,859,070 COVID-19 cases with 97,250 deaths, while India reported a total of at least 1,964,530 confirmed cases and 40,690 deaths. In total, there were at least 18,835,980 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 708,270 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Communication services shares gained 2.3% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included CenturyLink, Inc. CTL, up 8%, and WiMi Hologram Cloud Inc. WIMI, up 8%.

In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell by 1%.

Top Headline

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co BMY reported stronger-than-expected results for its second quarter and raised its earnings guidance.

The company reported quarterly earnings of $1.63 per share, exceeding analysts’ estimates of $1.48 per share. The company reported quarterly sales of $10.10 billion, beating analysts’ estimates of $9.97 billion.

Bristol-Myers Squibb said it now expects FY20 adjusted EPS of $6.10-$6.25, versus earlier forecast of $6.00-$6.20.

Equities Trading UP

American Virtual Cloud Technologies, Inc. AVCT shares shot up 82% to $8.79 after the company reported that it will buy Ribbon's Kandy Communications Business.

Shares of ADiTx Therapeutics, Inc. ADTX got a boost, shooting 97% to $7.74 after the company reported introduction of AditxtScore for COVID-19 and announced completion of validation studies by Stanford Blood Center.

Denali Therapeutics Inc. DNLI shares were also up, gaining 31% to $30.51 after the company announced it signed an agreement with Biogen to co-develop and co-commercialize Denali's small molecule inhibitors of LRRK2 for Parkinson's Disease.

Equities Trading DOWN

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LightPath Technologies, Inc. LPTH shares tumbled 30% to $3.2650. LightPath said it expects preliminary Q4 sales between $8.7 million and $9.1 million.

Shares of OraSure Technologies, Inc. OSUR were down 36% to $12.62 after the company reported weaker-than-expected Q2 results.

MicroVision, Inc. MVIS was down, falling 25% to $1.8950 after the company posted a wider-than-expected Q2 loss.

Commodities


In commodity news, oil traded down 0.5% to $41.97, while gold traded up 0.9% to $2,067.40.

Silver traded up 5.6% Thursday to $28.395, while copper fell 0.2% to $2.912.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.73%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.16%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 1.34%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 declined 0.54%, French CAC 40 fell 0.98% and UK shares fell 1.27%.

Economics

U.S. initial jobless claims declined to 1.19 million in the latest week from 1.44 million.

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