Mid-Day Market Update: Nasdaq Rises Over 100 Points; Allakos Shares Plunge

Midway through trading Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.41% to 35,637.05 while the NASDAQ rose 0.80% to 15,463.85. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.67% to 4,680.45.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 52,253,840 cases with around 830,990 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 34,758,480 cases and 478,320 deaths, while Brazil reported over 22,219,470 COVID-19 cases with 617,990 deaths. In total, there were at least 276,681,680 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,388,050 deaths.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer discretionary shares climbed 1.7% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Lottery.com Inc. LTRY, up 18% and XL Fleet Corp. XL up 8%.

In trading on Wednesday, consumer staples shares rose by just 0.1%.

Top Headline

CarMax, Inc. KMX reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter.

CarMax reported third-quarter FY21 sales growth of 64.5% year-on-year, to $8.53 billion, beating the analyst consensus of $7.53 billion. EPS of $1.63 improved 14.8% from $1.42 a year ago. EPS for the current year’s quarter included a one-time benefit of $0.10 related to settlement proceeds in a class-action lawsuit. Analysts had expected the company to report EPS of $1.44.

Equities Trading UP

Red Cat Holdings, Inc. RCAT shares shot up 26% to $2.3050 after the company announced it was awarded a multiple award blanket purchase agreement by the United States Customs and Border Protection worth up to $90 million over five years.

Shares of BioRestorative Therapies, Inc. BRTX got a boost, shooting 15% to $5.28 after the company entered into a Master Service Agreement with PRC Clinical, a contract research organization (CRO), to conduct BioRestorative's Phase 2 trial.

Acasti Pharma Inc. ACST shares were also up, gaining 30% to $1.4450 after Oppenheimer initiated coverage on the stock with an Outperform rating and a $6 price target.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Allakos Inc. ALLK shares tumbled 88% to $9.99 after the company reported data from ENIGMA 2 Phase 3 study of lirentelimab in eosinophilic gastritis (EG) or eosinophilic duodenitis (EoD) and KRYPTOS Phase 2/3 study of lirentelimab in eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE). Both ENIGMA 2 and KRYPTOS studies met their histologic co-primary endpoints but did not achieve statistical significance on the patient-reported symptomatic co-primary endpoints.

Shares of CalAmp Corp. CAMP were down 26% to $7.30 after the company swung to a loss in the third quarter. Craig-Hallum downgraded CalAmp from Buy to Hold and lowered the price target from $14 to $10.

AgileThought, Inc. AGIL was down, falling 25% to $6.87 after the company priced 3.6 million shares at $7 per share to raise $24.9 million in a secondary public offering.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.4% to $71.43, while gold traded up 0.6% to $1,799.00.

Silver traded up 1.1% Wednesday to $22.765 while copper rose 0.7% to $4.3760.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.61%, the Spanish Ibex Index surged 0.55% and the German DAX 40 gained 0.59%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.25%, French CAC 40 climbed 0.81% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.28%.

The British economy grew 1.1% on quarter during the three months to September. Business investment in the UK dropped 2.5% quarter-over-quarter during the July-September period, while current account deficit widened to GBP 24.4 billion in the third quarter. Spain's producer price inflation increased to an all-time high of 33.1% year-over-year in November.

Economics

The US economy expanded by an annualized rate of 2.3% on quarter in the third quarter.

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index fell to 0.37 in November versus a three-month high level of 0.75 in October.

Corporate profits increased 3.4% to a new record high of $2.52 trillion in the third quarter.

The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index climbed to 115.8 in December from revised reading of 111.9 in the earlier month.

Existing home sales in the US rose 1.9% to an annual rate of 6.46 million in November.

US domestic oil stockpiles dropped for the fourth straight week by 4.715 million barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

Check out the full economic calendar here