Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Rise; Hormel Foods Beats Q2 Views

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.23% to 33,973.37 while the NASDAQ rose 1.15% to 13,453.21. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.62% to 4,141.37.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 32,997,870 cases with around 587,220 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 25,496,330 cases and 283,240 deaths, while Brazil reported over 15,732,830 COVID-19 cases with 439,050 deaths. In total, there were at least 164,284,760 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 3,406,260 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares climbed 1.2% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Lightspeed POS Inc. LSPD, up 12%, and Canadian Solar Inc. CSIQ, up 8%.

In trading on Thursday, energy shares dipped 1.1%.

Top Headline

Hormel Foods Corporation HRL reported stronger-than-expected results for its second quarter.

Hormel Foods reported quarterly adjusted earnings of $0.42 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.41 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $2.60 billion, exceeding market views of $2.42 billion.

Hormel Foods said it expects FY21 earnings of $1.70 to $1.82 per share on sales of $10.2 billion to $10.8 billion.

Equities Trading UP

InnSuites Hospitality Trust IHT shares shot up 24% to $6.50 after dropping 11% on Wednesday. The company recently reported 2021 sales of $4.20 million versus $6.57 million year over year.

Shares of Precipio, Inc. PRPO got a boost, shooting 18% to $4.88. Precipio recently announced it launched a new, four-hour Acute Myeloid Leukemia HemeScreen panel to specifically determine the genetics of this aggressive, acute form of leukemia.

Youdao, Inc. DAO shares were also up, gaining 17% to $26.10 after Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock from Equal-Weight to Overweight and announced a price target of $30 per share.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Black Diamond Therapeutics, Inc. BDTX shares tumbled 26% to $16.37 after the company reported initial data from the Phase 1 dose-escalation portion of the Phase 1/2 MasterKey-01 trial evaluating BDTX-189 in patients with advanced solid tumors.

Shares of Aerpio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ARPO were down 19% to $1.79. The company issued an update on Aadi Bioscience presentation at the ASCO 2021 virtual meeting.

Lordstown Motors Corp. RIDE was down, falling 14% to $9.86 after Wolfe Research downgraded the stock from Peer Perform to Underperform and lowered its price target from $18 to $1.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.5% to $62.44, while gold traded down 0.8% to $1,867.10.

Silver traded down 1.2% Thursday to $27.69 while copper fell 0.2% to $4.5655.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.3%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.5% and the German DAX 30 gained 0.3%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.1%, French CAC 40 gained 0.4% and Italy’s FTSE MIB rose 0.1%.

The Eurozone current account surplus increased to EUR 31.0 billion in March versus EUR 24.6 billion in the year-ago month. Construction output in Italy jumped 74.5% year-over-year in March following a 3.5% increase in the prior month, while German producer prices rose 5.2% year-over-year in April.

Economics

US initial jobless claims fell by 34 thousand to 444 thousand during the week ending May 15.

The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index dropped to 31.5 in May from around 50 year high of 50.2 in the previous month.

The index of leading economic indicators rose 1.6% for April.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is scheduled 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.

Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan is set to speak at 6:05 p.m. ET.

Check out the full economic calendar here