Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Pfizer To Acquire Arena Pharmaceuticals

Following the market opening Monday, the Dow traded down 0.65% to 35,736.04 while the NASDAQ fell 0.26% to 15,590.13. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.46% to 4,690.48.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 50,801,450 cases with around 817,950 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 34,697,860 cases and 475,630 deaths, while Brazil reported over 22,189,860 COVID-19 cases with 616,940 deaths. In total, there were at least 270,510,600 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,324,320 deaths.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Utilities shares climbed 0.5% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Montauk Renewables, Inc. MNTK, up 4% and NRG Energy, Inc. NRG up 3%.

In trading on Monday, energy shares fell 2.2%.

Top Headline

Pfizer Inc PFE agreed to acquire Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc ARNA, a clinical-stage company developing therapies to treat several immuno-inflammatory diseases.

Under the agreement terms, Pfizer will acquire Arena for $100 per share in an all-cash transaction for a total equity value of approximately $6.7 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ARNA shares shot up 84% to $91.91. Pfizer agreed to acquire Arena Pharmaceuticals for $100 per share in an all-cash transaction.

Shares of BELLUS Health Inc. BLU got a boost, shooting 61% to $9.01 after the company announced topline data its Phase 2b SOOTHE trial of BLU-5937 in Refractory Chronic Cough.

Foghorn Therapeutics Inc. FHTX shares were also up, gaining 47% to $17.57. Loxo Oncology, an R&D group of Eli Lilly And Co LLY, and Foghorn Therapeutics collaborated to create oncology medicines by applying Foghorn's Gene Traffic Control platform.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Nisun International Enterprise Development Group Co., Ltd NISN shares tumbled 57% to $4.79 after the company priced its $77 million underwritten public offering of common shares and pre-funded warrants to purchase common shares.

Shares of IGM Biosciences, Inc. IGMS were down 33% to $33.15 after reporting Phase 1 trial data in advanced B-Cell malignancies. RBC Capital downgraded IGM Biosciences to Sector Perform from Outperform with a price target of $51, down from $90.

X4 Pharmaceuticals, Inc. XFOR was down, falling 26% to $2.8192 after the company presented new clinical and scientific data at the 2021 ASH Annual Meeting.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.2% to $70.84, while gold traded up 0.1% to $1,786.20.

Silver traded up 0.6% Monday to $22.33 while copper fell 0.1% to $4.2855.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.1%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.1% and the German DAX 30 gained 0.5%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.5%, French CAC 40 fell 0.2% and Italy’s FTSE MIB fell 0.1%.

Wholesale prices in Germany surged 16.6% year-over-year in November following a 15.2% increase a month ago.

 

Economics

US consumer inflation expectations report for November will be released at 11:00 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 3-and 6-month bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

Check out the full economic calendar here