Dow, S&P 500 Record Gains; Crude Oil Falls Sharply

U.S. stocks traded higher toward the end of trading, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining around 1% on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.29% to 33,066.27 while the NASDAQ rose 0.95% to 12,549.80. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.68% to 4,168.77.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Communication services shares rose by 1.5% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Zhihu Inc. ZH, up 11% and Pinterest, Inc. PINS up 11%.

In trading on Thursday, consumer staples shares fell by 0.1%.

Top Headline

Dollar Tree Inc DLTR reported second-quarter FY22 sales growth of 6.7% year-on-year to $6.77 billion, marginally missing the consensus of $6.79 billion. EPS of $1.60 beat the consensus of $1.58.

 

Equities Trading UP

Cosmos Holdings Inc. COSM shares shot up 16% to $0.4548 after the company's subsidiary SkyPharm launched its first Sky Premium Life products on Amazon in the U.S.

 

Shares of Snowflake Inc. SNOW got a boost, shooting 22% to $195.34 after the company reported better-than-expected Q2 sales results and issued product revenue guidance.

 

Kiora Pharmaceuticals, Inc. KPRX shares were also up, gaining 91% to $0.2525 after Ladenburg Thalmann initiated coverage on the stock with a Buy rating and announced a price target of $6.50.

 

Equities Trading DOWN

Peloton Interactive, Inc. PTON shares tumbled 19% to $10.98 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 sales results and issued Q1 sales guidance below estimates.

Shares of Grab Holdings Limited GRAB were down 12% to $3.1550 after the company reported Q2 results and issued FY22 sales guidance.

ERYTECH Pharma S.A. ERYP was down, falling 17% to $1.0250 after the company announced it will stop its plans to pursue a Biologics License Application seeking approval for Graspa in hypersensitive acute lymphoblastic leukemia following feedback from the FDA..

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 2.5% to $92.52, while gold traded up 0.5% to $1,770.80.

Silver traded up 1.1% to $19.120 on Thursday while copper rose 1.5% to $3.6990.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.3%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.11% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.15%. The German DAX gained 0.39%, French CAC 40 fell 0.08% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.1%.

The Ifo Business Climate indicator for Germany fell to 88.5 in August versus a revised 88.7 in July, while the country’s economy unexpectedly grew 0.1% on quarter in the second quarter. Manufacturing climate indicator in France declined for a second month to a reading of 104 in August.

UK’s car production surged 8.6% from a year ago to 58,043 units in July. Spanish annual producer inflation declined to 40.4% in July from a revised 43.1% annual surge in the prior month.

 

Economics

 

The three-day Jackson Hole economic symposium starts today, with Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell scheduled to speak on Friday.

The US economy shrank an annualized 0.6% on quarter in the second quarter, compared to a 0.9% decline in the advance estimate.

U.S. initial jobless claims fell by 2,000 to 243,000 in the week ended August 20th from a revised 245,000 in the prior period. Analysts, however, were expecting a reading of 253,000.

Corporate profits climbed 9.1% to a new record high of $2.62 trillion in the second quarter.

U.S. natural-gas supplies climbed 60 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

The Kansas City Fed’s Manufacturing Production Index declined to -9 in August from 7 in the previous month.

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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 95,734,080 cases with around 1,067,540 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,378,920 cases and 527,480 deaths, while France reported over 34,408,900 COVID-19 cases with 153,760 deaths. In total, there were at least 603,660,390 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,480,810 deaths.