US Stocks Open Lower; Dow Drops 1%

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones dropping over 150 points on Friday.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded down 1.05% to 32,807.33 while the NASDAQ fell 1.52% to 11,413.98. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 1.22% to 3,963.44.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Financials shares fell by just 0.6% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included TOP Financial Group Limited TOP, up 6%, and Banco BBVA Argentina S.A. BBAR, up 2%.
• In trading on Friday, consumer discretionary shares dipped by 1.5%.

Top Headline

Personal spending in the US rose 1.8% month-over-month in January. Core PCE prices in the US rose by 0.6% month-over-month in January.

Equities Trading UP

• Bridger Aerospace Group Holdings, Inc. BAER shares shot up 153% to $11.21. Jeffrey E. Kelter reported a 22.4% stake in a 13D filing on Thursday.
• Shares of Beyond Meat, Inc. BYND got a boost, shooting 19% to $20.30 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 results.
• Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. KTOS shares were also up, gaining 14% to $13.07 after the company posted strong quarterly sales.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Fulcrum Therapeutics, Inc. FULC shares tumbled 58% to $5.43 after the company announced a clinical hold on FTX-6058 in sickle cell disease.
• Shares of SELLAS Life Sciences Group, Inc. SLS were down 54% to $1.68 after the company announced pricing of a $20 million underwritten public offering.
• Nektar Therapeutics NKTR was down, falling 43% to $1.70 after the company reported its SLE trial failed to achieve its primary endpoint.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.8% to $76.00 while gold traded down 0.2% at $1,822.60.

Silver traded down 1.3% to $21.02 on Friday while copper fell 0.7% to $4.0305.

Euro zone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.22%, London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.10% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.15%. The German DAX dropped 0.70% French CAC 40 fell 0.58% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dropped 0.28%.

The consumer confidence indicator for France slipped to 82 in February versus a revised reading of 83 in January. German GfK Consumer Climate Indicator climbed to -30.5 heading into March versus a revised level of -33.8 in February, while the country’s economy contracted 0.4% on quarter in the fourth quarter.

The GfK Consumer Confidence indicator in the UK rose to -38 in February versus -45 in the earlier month, while car production in the country declined 0.3% year-over-year to 68,790 units in January.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly lower on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 1.29%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 1.68% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropping 0.62%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex dropped 0.4%.

The annual inflation rate in Japan accelerated to 4.3% in January from 4.0% in the previous month, while food prices increased by 7.3% year-over-year in January.

Economics

• Personal spending in the US rose 1.8% month-over-month in January.
• Core PCE prices in the US rose by 0.6% month-over-month in January.
• Personal income increased by 0.6% from a month ago in January.
• Building permits rose 0.1% to an annual rate of 1.339 million in January.

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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 105,161,020 cases with around 1,144,360 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,685,610 cases and 530,760 deaths, while France reported over 39,605,030 COVID-19 cases with 164,840 deaths. In total, there were at least 679,352,150 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,796,180 deaths.