Mid-Morning Market Update: Markets Mixed; US Jobless Claims Rise To 229,000

U.S. stocks traded mixed this morning, following the release of jobless claims data on Thursday.

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.12% to 32,950.55 while the NASDAQ fell 0.06% to 12,078.85. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.06% to 4,118.15.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer staples shares rose by 0.7% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Mission Produce, Inc. AVO, up 9% and The Real Good Food Company, Inc. RGF up 3%.

In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell 0.7%.

Top Headline

US initial jobless claims rose by 27,000 to 229,000 in the week ended June 4th, the highest level since mid-January. Analysts, however, were expecting a reading of 210,000 for the latest week.

Equities Trading UP

Shares of SoundHound AI, Inc. SOUN got a boost, shooting 14% to $4.78.

Innovid Corp. CTV shares were also up, gaining 14% to $2.66.

Equities Trading DOWN

Symbotic Inc. SYM shares tumbled 23% to $15.52 after jumping around 120% on Wednesday. Symbotic reported the completion of its business combination with SVF Investment Corp. to become a publicly traded company.

Shares of Forge Global Holdings, Inc. FRGE were down 22% to $11.26. Forge announced redemption of public warrants.

Satellogic Inc. SATL was down, falling 19% to $5.37.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.4% to $121.57, while gold traded down 0.3% to $1,850.20.

Silver traded down 1% to $21.875 on Thursday while copper fell 1.4% to $4.3945.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.1%, London’s FTSE 100 slipped 1.1% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.2%. The German DAX dropped 1.4%, French CAC 40 fell 1.3% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 1.8%.

Payroll employment in the France’s private sector increased by 0.3% to 20.60 million in the first quarter.

Economics

US initial jobless claims rose by 27,000 to 229,000 in the week ended June 4th, the highest level since mid-January. Analysts, however, were expecting a reading of 210,000 for the latest week.

The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is scheduled for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury is set to auction 4-and 8-week bills at 11:30 a.m. ET.

The Treasury will auction 30-year bonds 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 86,988,670 cases with around 1,035,030 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,197,520 cases and 524,720 deaths, while Brazil reported over 31,315,770 COVID-19 cases with 667,700 deaths. In total, there were at least 538,224,900 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,326,880 deaths.