U.S. President Joe Biden Tests Positive For COVID-19; Tabula Rasa HealthCare Shares Spike Higher

U.S. stocks traded mixed midway through trading, with the Dow Jones dropping around 100 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded down 0.32% to 31,772.42 while the NASDAQ rose 0.42% to 11,947.92. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.21% to 3,968.13.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer discretionary shares rose 1.1% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Gogoro Inc. GGR, up 7% and Tesla, Inc. TSLA up 7%.

In trading on Wednesday, energy shares fell 2.8%.

Top Headline

President Joe Biden has tested positive for COVID-19, the White House said Thursday.

The president, who is fully vaccinated and has received two booster shots, has started taking Pfizer Inc.’s PFE Paxlovid oral antiviral pill and is experiencing “very mild symptoms,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

First Lady Jill Biden had a negative test on Thursday morning, while Vice President Kamala Harris recovered from coronavirus in April.

Equities Trading UP

Virax Biolabs Group Limited VRAX shares shot up 294% to $19.68. The company offered shares at an expected price of $5.00 per share with an insider lock-up period of 180 days ending on January 17, 2023.

Shares of Addex Therapeutics Ltd ADXN got a boost, shooting 128% to $2.0942. The company announced the reduction of its issued, authorized and conditional share capital from CHF 1.00 to CHF 0.01 and provided corporate updates.

Tabula Rasa HealthCare, Inc. TRHC shares were also up, gaining 73% to $4.51 after the company said it expects Q2 sales of $72 – $73 million, exceeding the prior guidance range of $66 – $69 million and the consensus of $67.61 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

LumiraDx Limited LMDX shares tumbled 20% to $1.68 after the company reported pricing of public offering of common shares and concurrent private placement.

Shares of Carnival Corporation CCL were down 12% to $9.78 after the company priced its 102 million share offering at $9.95 per share.

Insteel Industries, Inc. IIIN was down, falling 15% to $34.52 after the company posted weaker-than-expected Q3 results.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 3.7% to $96.22, while gold traded up 0.6% to $1,710.20.

Silver traded up 0.1% to $18.675 on Thursday while copper fell 0.8% to $3.30.

Euro zone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.44%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.09% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.45%. The German DAX fell 0.27%, French CAC 40 rose 0.27% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.97%.

The ECB increased its three key interest rates by 50bps during its recent meeting, recording the first hike since 2011, in a bid to control the surging inflation level. The manufacturing climate indicator in France dropped to 106 in July from 108 in the prior month.

Economics

U.S. initial jobless claims climbed by 9,000 to 251,000 the week ended July 16th, recording the highest level since November 2021. Analysts, however, were expecting a reading of 240,000.

The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index fell for the fourth straight month to -12.3 in July.

The index of leading economic indicators fell 0.8% for June.

U.S. natural-gas supplies climbed 32 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

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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 91,767,460 cases with around 1,050,700 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 43,825,180 cases and 525,870 deaths, while Brazil reported over 33,454,290 COVID-19 cases with 676,280 deaths. In total, there were at least 571,833,540 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,396,430 deaths.