Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Lower; Darden Restaurants Posts Upbeat Earnings

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded down 1.33% to 35,420.19 while the NASDAQ fell 0.61% to 15,082.68. The S&P also fell, dropping 1% to 4,622.16.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 51,435,650 cases with around 824,520 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 34,726,040 cases and 476,860 deaths, while Brazil reported over 22,204,940 COVID-19 cases with 617,520 deaths. In total, there were at least 273,330,020 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,355,740 deaths.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Real estate shares climbed 0.1% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included InvenTrust Properties Corp. IVT, up 3% and CatchMark Timber Trust, Inc. CTT up 3%.

In trading on Friday, financial shares fell 2.4%.

Top Headline

Darden Restaurants, Inc. DRI reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter and raised its FY22 sales guidance.

Darden reported quarterly earnings of $1.48 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $1.43 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $2.27 billion, versus expectations of $2.23 billion.

Darden raised its FY22 sales guidance from $9.4 billion-$9.6 billion to $9.55 billion-$9.7 billion. The company said Chairman and CEO Gene Lee will retire in May 2022 and named President and CFO Rick Cardenas as his replacement.

 

Equities Trading UP

Genfit SA GNFT shares shot up 46% to $4.83 after the company, and Ipsen, announced an exclusive licensing agreement for elafibranor.

Shares of Bellerophon Therapeutics, Inc. BLPH got a boost, shooting 34% to $3.1694 after topline data from Phase 2 study (PULSE-PHPF-002) evaluating the acute hemodynamic benefit of INOpulse via right heart catheterization for pulmonary hypertension associated with sarcoidosis (PH-Sarc).

X4 Pharmaceuticals, Inc. XFOR shares were also up, gaining 27% to $3.0087.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

BlackSky Technology Inc. BKSY shares tumbled 15% to $5.97.

Shares of Rivian Automotive, Inc. RIVN were down 14% to $93.62 after the company reported Q3 earnings results and said it expects to be a few hundred vehicles short of its 2021 production target of 1,200 vehicles.

Tyra Biosciences, Inc. TYRA was down, falling 12% to $12.15.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 2% to $70.94, while gold traded up 0.6% to $1,808.70.

Silver traded up 0.4% Friday to $22.58 while copper rose 0.4% to $4.3210.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 0.8%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.8% and the German DAX 30 dropped 0.8%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.1%, French CAC 40 fell 0.9% and Italy’s FTSE MIB dipped 1.1%.

The annual inflation rate in the Eurozone accelerated to 4.9% in November from 4.1% in the previous month, while construction output increased 4.4% year-over-year in October. Spain's trade deficit widened to EUR 3.4 billion in October from EUR 0.7 billion in the year-ago month.

The Ifo Business Climate indicator for Germany dropped to 94.7 in December, while German producer prices surged 19.2% year-over-year in November, following an 18.4% growth in the prior month. Retail sales in the UK increased 1.4% in November. Passenger car registrations in the European Union dipped 20.5% year-over-year to 713,346 units in November.

Economics

The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week is scheduled for release at 1:00 p.m. ET.

San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly is set to speak at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller will speak at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Check out the full economic calendar here