Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Drops 50 Points; IEC Electronics Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.14% to 35,435.25 while the NASDAQ rose 0.29% to 14,808.42. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.19% to 4,456.37.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 36,055,270 cases with around 618,130 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 32,036,510 cases and 429,170 deaths, while Brazil reported over 20,212,640 COVID-19 cases with 564,770 deaths. In total, there were at least 204,139,810 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,315,870 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares rose 0.7% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Cassava Sciences, Inc. SAVA, up 14% and Fulcrum Therapeutics, Inc. FULC up 5%.

In trading on Thursday, energy fell 1.2%.

Top Headline

The Producer Price Index rose 1% for July, following a 1% increase in the previous month. Analysts, however, were expecting for a 0.6% increase in prices.

 

Equities Trading UP

IEC Electronics Corp. IEC shares shot up 47% to $15.29 after the company reported a merger deal with Creation Technologies for $15.35 per share in cash. The company also released Q3 results.

Shares of The ExOne Company XONE got a boost, shooting 46% to $25.23 after Desktop Metal announced it will acquire ExOne. The ExOne also reported better-than-expected Q2 sales results.

Powerbridge Technologies Co., Ltd. PBTS shares were also up, gaining 69% to $2.14 after the company announced it is expanding its blockchain business to engage in cryptocurrency mining.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

MedAvail Holdings, Inc MDVL shares tumbled 51% to $3.65 after the company reported a wider-than-expected Q2 loss.

Shares of LifeStance Health Group, Inc. LFST were down 47% to $11.50 after the company reported Q2 earnings results.

GoHealth, Inc. GOCO was down, falling 40% to $4.8850 after the company reported a wider-than-expected Q2 loss. Evercore ISI Group and Credit Suisse downgraded the stock.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.1% to $69.22, while gold traded down 0.1% to $1,753.00.

Silver traded down 1.5% Thursday to $23.145 while copper fell 0.3% to $4.3545.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.11%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.04% and the German DAX 30 gained 0.70%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.37%, French CAC 40 rose 0.36% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.38%.

Britain's gross domestic product increased 22.2% year-over-year in the second quarter, while industrial production dropped 0.7% in June. Imports to the UK rose 3.2% to a six-month high of GBP 51.26 billion, while exports declined 1.5% to GBP 48.74 billion in June.

Eurozone industrial production dropped 0.3% in June following a revised 1.1% drop in May. Italy's trade surplus shrank to EUR 5.681 billion in June from EUR 6.228 billion in the year-ago month.

Economics

US initial jobless claims declined to 375,000 in the week ending August 7th.

The Producer Price Index rose 1% for July, following a 1% increase in the previous month. Analysts, however, were expecting for a 0.6% increase in prices.

US natural-gas supplies climbed 49 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

Check out the full economic calendar here