Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Open Higher As Dow Rises Over 100 Points

U.S. stocks opened on a strong note on Friday, after recording sharp losses in the previous session.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded up 0.37% to 35,370.38 while the NASDAQ rose 0.08% to 14,197.42. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.28% to 4,516.82.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed 1.5% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included NGL Energy Partners LP NGL, up 9% and Precision Drilling Corporation PDS up 9%.

In trading on Friday, consumer discretionary shares tumbled by 0.4%.

Top Headline

Under Armour, Inc. UAA reported better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

Under Armour reported quarterly earnings of $0.14 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.07 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $1.50 billion, versus expectations of $1.48 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Modular Medical, Inc. MODD shares shot up 35% to $5.00 following its recent uplisting to the Nasdaq Capital Market on Thursday.

Shares of Y-mAbs Therapeutics, Inc. YMAB got a boost, shooting 19% to $8.20. Y-mAbs reported completion of pre-BLA meeting with the FDA for Omburtamab.

Heartcore Enterprises, Inc. HTCR shares were also up, gaining 24% to $6.16. The company, on Thursday, priced its IPO at $5 per share.

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Equities Trading DOWN

ProQR Therapeutics N.V. PRQR shares tumbled 74% to $1.44 aftafter the company reported the study did not meet the primary endpoint, nor notable secondary endpoints in the Phase 2/3 Illuminate trial for seporfarsen.

Shares of Universal Insurance Holdings, Inc. UVE were down 27% to $12.45. Universal Insurance Holdings is expected to release Q4 results after the close of trading on the NYSE on Thursday, February 24, 2022.

Betterware de Mexico, S.A.B. de C.V. BWMX was down, falling 26% to $15.63 after the company reported Q4 results.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.9% to $90.67, while gold traded down 0.6% to $1,827.30.

Silver traded down 2.4% Friday to $22.95 while copper fell 2.1% to $4.5640.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.9%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.8%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1%. The German DAX declined 0.6%, French CAC 40 fell 1.1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dipped 1.4%.

The British economy grew 1% during the three months to December, while construction output rose by 7.4% year-over-year in December. Industrial production in the UK climbed 0.3% from a month ago in December. The UK trade deficit shrank to GBP 2.337 billion in December from GBP 2.586 billion in the prior month.

Annual inflation rate in Germany was confirmed at 4.9% for January, while wholesale price inflation in the country increased by 16.2% year-over-year in January.

Economics

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index dropped for a second straight month to 61.7 in February.

The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week will be released at 1:00 p.m. ET.

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COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 79,052,680 cases with around 939,420 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 42,536,130 cases and 507,200 deaths, while Brazil reported over 27,125,510 COVID-19 cases with 636,110 deaths. In total, there were at least 407,054,210 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,810,910 deaths.