Mid-Day Market Update: Nasdaq Turns Positive; 4D pharma Shares Jump

The Nasdaq Composite turned higher midway through trading on Wednesday.

The Dow traded down 0.69% to 34,566.59 while the NASDAQ rose 0.28% to 14,148.16. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.29% to 4,498.57.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares jumped by 2.1% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Gran Tierra Energy Inc. GTE, up 10% and BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust BPT up 10%.

In trading on Wednesday, health care shares fell by 1 %.

Top Headline

General Mills, Inc. GIS reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter and raised its FY22 outlook.

General Mills posted adjusted earnings of $0.84 per share, beating market expectations of $0.78 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $4.54 billion, missing estimates of $4.56 billion.

General Mills boosted its FY22 organic net sales growth guidance from 4%-5% to 5%. It also expects adjusted per-share profit between flat and a growth of 2%, versus its prior range of a 2% drop to a 1% growth.

Equities Trading UP

4D pharma plc LBPS shares shot up 31% to $6.14 after the company announced the primary efficacy endpoint was met early in the renal cell carcinoma group in Part B of the study of MRx0518 and KEYTRUDA.

Shares of Mogo Inc. MOGO got a boost, shooting 20% to $2.9110 after the company reported Q4 sales results were higher year-over-year and announced a $10 million buyback.

Allego N.V. ALLG shares were also up, gaining 130% to $19.01 after the company announced the completion of its merger agreement with Spartan Acquisition Corp., which resulted in 98% of the company notes redeemed at the merger vote. The company is also gaining retail investor interest.

Equities Trading DOWN

Vicor Corporation VICR shares tumbled 15% to $65.93. CJS Securities downgraded Vicor from Market Outperform to Market Perform.

Shares of Codex DNA, Inc. DNAY were down 19% to $7.41 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 EPS results.

Cue Health Inc. HLTH was down, falling 18% to $7.01. Cue Health recently partnered with Albertsons Companies for COVID-19 test kits.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 3% to $115.06, while gold traded up 0.5% to $1,930.80.

Silver traded up 0.8% Wednesday to $25.11 while copper rose 1.3% to $4.7630.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.03%, London’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.2%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.74%. The German DAX dropped 1.47%, French CAC 40 fell 1.34% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 1.09%.

Annual inflation rate in the UK accelerated to 6.2% in February from 5.5% in January, while headline rate of output prices rose to 10.1% year-over-year in February.

Economics

Mortgage applications in the US declined 8.1% in the week ended March 18th.

US new home sales fell 2% to an annual rate of 772,000 in February.

US crude oil inventories declined by 2.508 million barrels to 413.4 million barrels in the week ended March 18th, the Energy Information Administration said.

The Treasury will auction 20-year bonds at 1:00 p.m. ET.

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Check out our premarket coverage here .

COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 81,476,260 cases with around 999,790 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,012,740 cases and 516,630 deaths, while Brazil reported over 29,683,680 COVID-19 cases with 657,770 deaths. In total, there were at least 474,776,970 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,123,010 deaths.