Mid-Day Market Update: Crude Oil Rises 1%; Arcturus Therapeutics Shares Drop

Midway through trading Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.01% to 30,404.87 while the NASDAQ fell 0.12% to 12,883.30. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.15% to 3,741.01.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 19,310,590 cases with around 334,960 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 10,224,300 confirmed cases and 148,150 deaths, while Brazil reported over 7,504,830 COVID-19 cases with 191,570 deaths. In total, there were at least 81,380,390 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 1,776,990 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares climbed 0.7% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included BioNano Genomics Inc BNGO, up 20%, and INmune Bio Inc INMB, up 17%.

In trading on Tuesday, energy shares fell 0.3%.

Top Headline

The House passed a bill Monday raising the payment to $2,000, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will try to pass the House bill by unanimous consent Tuesday.

Republicans are expected to object, which might mean a vote in a few days that would require 60 senators.

Equities Trading UP

Universal Security Instruments, Inc. UUU shares shot up 111% to $6.51. DPW Holdings, earlier during the month, entered into agreement to purchase a 9.9% equity interest in Universal Security Instruments.

Shares of Technical Communications Corporation TCCO got a boost, shooting 95% to $7.59. Technical Communications, on Monday, reported a net loss of $0.49 per share, on revenue of $4,108,000 for the year ended September 26, 2020.

Caesarstone Ltd. CSTE shares were also up, gaining 18% to $12.69. Benchmark initiated coverage on Caesarstone with a Buy rating.

Equities Trading DOWN

Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc. ARCT shares tumbled 53% to $43.34 after the company provided an update on data from its vaccine candidate, ARCT-021. Following the update, multiple firms, including Baird, HC Wainwright & Co and Raymond James downgraded ratings on the stock.

Shares of AeroCentury Corp. ACY were down 41% to $8.19. The company’s stock jumped 415% on Monday.

Monaker Group, Inc MKGI was down, falling 31% to $2.45. Monaker Group increased size of its offering from 2.6 million shares to 3.08 million shares at $2.50 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1% to $48.09, while gold traded up 0.5% to $1,889.60.

Silver traded down 0.2% Tuesday to $26.49 while copper rose 0.1% to $3.5730.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today on continued optimism over Britain and the European Union signing the Brexit trade deal. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.83%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.29% and German DAX 30 slipped 0.09%. Meanwhile, the French CAC 40 rose 0.53%, London’s FTSE 100 gained 1.64% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.04%.

Economics

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

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index increased 7.9% year-over-year in October, versus a 6.6% increase in the prior month.