Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Home Depot Tops Q4 Views

Following the market opening Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.29% to 31,431.18 while the NASDAQ fell 1.21% to 13,368.87. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.48% to 3,858.01.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 28,190,620 cases with around 500,310 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 11,016,430 confirmed cases and 156,460 deaths, while Brazil reported over 10,195,160 COVID-19 cases with 247,140 deaths. In total, there were at least 111,790,690 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 2,476,120 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Financial shares rose 0.4% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included MainStreet Bancshares, Inc. MNSB, up 16%, and MBIA Inc. MBI, up 9%.

In trading on Tuesday, consumer discretionary shares fell by 1.2%.

Top Headline

The Home Depot, Inc. HD reported better-than-expected results for its fourth quarter.

Home Depot reported quarterly earnings of $2.74 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $2.62 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $32.30 billion, versus expectations of $30.73 billion.

Home Depot raised its quarterly dividend from $1.50 to $1.65 per share.

 

Equities Trading UP

Yunhong CTI Ltd. CTIB shares shot up 76% to $4.1599.

Shares of Frank's International N.V. FI got a boost, shooting 31% to $4.5450 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 results.

Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. SNSS shares were also up, gaining 22% to $4.36 after Oppenheimer upgraded the stock from Perform to Outperform and announced a price target of $12 per share. The company earlier announced vote approving reverse stock split within range between 3-for-1 and 6-for-1.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Churchill Capital Corp IV CCIV shares tumbled 26% to $42.44 after the company, and Lucid Motors, announced they have entered into a definitive merger agreement.

Shares of Dragon Victory International Limited LYL were down 23% to $2.29 after dropping 21% on Monday.

The9 Limited NCTY was down, falling 23% to $63.00 following a drop in the price of Bitcoin. The9 acquired 70% equity in Hangzhou SuanLi Technology Co. Ltd. (Interhash), a cryptocurrency cloud mining blockchain software-as-a-service company for approximately $7 million.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.8% to $62.17, while gold traded down 0.1% to $1,806.10.

Silver traded down 0.8% Tuesday to $27.87 while copper fell 0.1% to $4.1375.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.1%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.5% and the German DAX 30 declined 1.3%. Meanwhile, the French CAC 40 fell 0.3%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.5% and Italy’s FTSE MIB fell 0.9%.

UK’s labor productivity declined 4.5% on quarter in the fourth quarter, while unemployment rate rose to 5.1% in the three months to December.

Economics

 

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index climbed 10.1% year-over-year in December.

The FHFA House Price Index rose 1.1% from a month ago in December .

The Richmond Fed manufacturing index came in steady at 14 in February.

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

The Treasury will auction 2-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.

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

Check out the full economic calendar here