Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Spok Holdings Surges On Takeover Offer; Sequential Brands Shares Slide

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.09% to 35,366.93 while the NASDAQ fell 0.02% to 15,263.43. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.11% to 4,523.94.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 39,058,680 cases with around 638,840 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 32,768,880 cases and 438,560 deaths, while Brazil reported over 20,752,280 COVID-19 cases with 579,570 deaths. In total, there were at least 217,238,050 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,511,600 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Real estate shares gained 0.6% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Xinyuan Real Estate Co., Ltd. XIN, up 9% and Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. AHT up 7%.

In trading on Tuesday, health care shares fell by 0.4%.

Top Headline

Designer Brands Inc. DBI reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter on Tuesday.

Designer Brands posted quarterly adjusted earnings of $0.56 per share, beating market estimates of $0.24 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $817.30 million, versus estimates of $751.21 million.

 

Equities Trading UP

AC Immune SA ACIU shares shot up 22% to $8.53. AC Immune and its collaborating partner Genentech, part of Roche Holdings, announced topline data from Phase 2 study evaluating semorinemab in mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD). Semorinemab met one of its co-primary endpoints, ADAS-Cog11 (cognitive scale). The second co-primary endpoint, ADCS-ADL (functional scale), was not met.

Shares of Sonnet BioTherapeutics Holdings, Inc. SONN got a boost, shooting 21% to $0.6776 in reaction to the selection of SON-1410 as a development candidate for melanoma and renal cancers.

Spok Holdings, Inc. SPOK shares were also up, gaining 26% to $9.86. Spok Holdings confirmed Acacia Research’s proposal to acquire Spok for $10.75 per share in cash.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Sequential Brands Group, Inc. SQBG shares tumbled 53% to $5.70 after the company announced it commenced voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

Shares of Zoom Video Communications, Inc. ZM were down 16% to $290.50. Zoom Video reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter, but issued weak earnings guidance for the third quarter.

Focus Universal Inc. FCUV was down, falling 13% to $5.25. Focus Universal priced 2 million shares at $5 per share to raise $10 million for its initial public offering on the Nasdaq.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.7% to $68.74, while gold traded up 0.3% to $1,817.10.

Silver traded down 0.1% Tuesday to $23.99 while copper fell 0.2% to $4.3690.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.38%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.24% and the German DAX 30 dropped 0.33%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.40%, French CAC 40 fell 0.11% and Italy’s FTSE MIB slipped 0.06%.

The Eurozone consumer price inflation rose to 3.0% year-over-year in August, compared to 2.2% in the prior month. Annual inflation rate in Italy rose to 2.1% in August from 1.9% in July, while Italian economy grew 2.7% on quarter during the three months to June.

Spain's current account surplus shrank to EUR 0.28 billion in June from EUR 2.08 billion in the year-ago month. Annual inflation rate in France surged to 1.9% in August from 1.2% a month ago, while quarterly economic growth was revised higher to 1.1% during the second quarter.

Economics

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index jumped 16.6% year-over-year during the first four weeks of August.

The S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller home price index rose at a record rate of 19.1% year-over-year in June.

The FHFA house price index rose 1.6% in June.

The Chicago Business Barometer declined to 66.8 in August from 73.4 in July.

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell to 113.1 in August from previous reading of 125.1.

Data on farm prices for July will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.

Check out the full economic calendar here