Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Mixed; Dow Drops 50 Points

U.S. stocks traded mixed this morning, with the Dow Jones dropping around 50 points on Tuesday.

Following the market opening Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.17% to 33,004.98 while the NASDAQ fell 0.18% to 12,513.83. The S&P, however, gained, 0.05% to 4,157.55.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed 1.4% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included TETRA Technologies, Inc. TTI, up 13% and CVR Energy, Inc. CVI up 12%.

In trading on Tuesday, consumer discretionary shares fell by 0.4%.

Top Headline

Pfizer Inc. PFE posted upbeat results for its first quarter on Tuesday.

Pfizer posted quarterly adjusted earnings of $1.62 per share, exceeding analysts’ estimates of $1.50 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $25.70 billion, versus expectations of $23.95 billion.

Pfizer revised its FY22 adjusted EPS guidance to $6.25-$6.45 to reflect $0.11 negative impact for accounting policy change. The company also sees sales of $98 billion to $102 billion.

Equities Trading UP

SoundHound AI, Inc. SOUN shares shot up 56% to $17.08. The company recently completed a SPAC merger deal last week and began trading on Thursday.

Shares of Sonoma Pharmaceuticals, Inc. SNOA got a boost, shooting 45% to $3.86 after the company and its partner MicroSafe Group DMCC received EPA approval for Nanocyn as a hospital-grade disinfectant.

Enovix Corporation ENVX shares were also up, gaining 30% to $11.65. Enovix announced initial smartwatch battery order from leading global consumer electronics company.

Equities Trading DOWN

Spero Therapeutics, Inc. SPRO shares tumbled 57% to $2.17. Spero Therapeutics will defer current commercialization activities for tebipenem HBr based on feedback from a recent Late Cycle Meeting (LCM) with the FDA.

Shares of Chegg, Inc. CHGG were down 30% to $17.36 after the company reported Q1 earnings results and issued Q2 and FY22 sales guidance below analyst estimates.

Blackboxstocks Inc. BLBX was down, falling 29% to $3.2901. Blackboxstocks completed its platform integration with E*TRADE Inc.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.4% to $104.71, while gold traded up 0.5% to $1,872.10.

Silver traded up 0.7% Tuesday to $22.745 while copper rose 1.2% to $4.3190.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.1%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.3% and Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 1.4%. The German DAX gained 0.1%, French CAC 40 gained 0.2% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 1.2%.

The unemployment rate in the Eurozone dropped to a record low of 6.8% in March from a revised 6.9% in February, while annual producer inflation rose to record high of 36.8% in March from a revised 31.5 percent in February. UK’s manufacturing PMI increased to 55.8 in April from a preliminary of 55.3, while unemployment rate in Germany remained at 5%.

Economics

The Federal Open Market Committee will begin its two-day policy meeting today.

Factory orders rose 2.2% month-over-month to $557.3 billion in March.

The number of job openings increased by 205,000 from a month ago to a series high of 11.549 million in March.

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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 83,170,400 cases with around 1,021,080 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,085,160 cases and 523,880 deaths, while Brazil reported over 30,460,990 COVID-19 cases with 663,650 deaths. In total, there were at least 514,034,340 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,263,580 deaths.