Dow Turns Higher; Crude Oil Rises 0.7%

U.S. stocks pared some losses, with the Dow Jones turning higher toward the end of trading on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 0.09% to 30,211.16 while the NASDAQ fell 1% to 11,107.18. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.40% to 3,774.70.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares rose by 0.7% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Cassava Sciences, Inc. SAVA, up 35% and Talkspace, Inc. TALK up 17%.

In trading on Thursday, consumer discretionary shares fell by 2.2%.

Top Headline

The US current account deficit shrank to $251.1 billion in the second quarter, following a record gap of $282.5 billion in the first quarter.

Equities Trading UP

• ShiftPixy, Inc. PIXY shares shot up 22% to $16.72. ShiftPixy, on Wednesday, announced pricing of $5 million private placement.
• Shares of Inventiva S.A. IVA got a boost, shooting 17% to $4.4750 after the company reported its 2022 first-half financial results and provided a corporate update.
• Spero Therapeutics, Inc. SPRO shares were also up, gaining 164% to $2.17 after the company announced it has entered into an exclusive license agreement with GSK for Spero's late-stage antibiotic asset, tebipenem HBr. Spero Therapeutics will receive $66 million upfront, with potential for future milestone payments, and tiered royalties.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Luminar Technologies, Inc. LAZR shares tumbled 20% to $7.47 after Northland Capital downgraded the stock from Outperform to Market Perform and lowered its price target from $13 to $10.
• Shares of MediWound Ltd. MDWD were down 20% to $1.3998 after the company announced concurrent registered direct and private placement offerings priced at-the-market of roughly $30 million
• Top Ships Inc. TOPS was down, falling 18% to $0.1750 after the company announced a 1-for-20 reverse stock split

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.7% to $83.49, while gold traded up 0.1% at $1,677.80.

Silver traded up 0.5% to $19.585 on Thursday while copper fell 0.2% to $3.46.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.79%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.08% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.24%. The German DAX dropped 1.84%, French CAC 40 fell 1.87% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 1.07%.

The manufacturing climate indicator in France declined for a third month to a reading of 102 in September from a revised 103 in August. The consumer confidence indicator in the Eurozone declined by 3.8 points to -28.8 in September. The Bank of England increased its key interest rate by 50bps to 2.25% during its September meeting.

Economics

• US initial jobless claims increased by 5,000 to 213,000 in the week ended September 17th, compared to market estimates of 218,000.
• The US current account deficit shrank to $251.1 billion in the second quarter, following a record gap of $282.5 billion in the first quarter.
• US natural-gas supplies climbed 103 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 97,721,710 cases with around 1,080,350 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,553,040 cases and 528,420 deaths, while France reported over 35,011,660 COVID-19 cases with 154,820 deaths. In total, there were at least 618,773,810 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,535,010 deaths.