Nasdaq Rises 1%; US Goods Trade Gap Widens In April

U.S. stocks traded higher this morning, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining around 1% on Friday.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded up 0.87% to 33,050.97 while the NASDAQ rose 1.06% to 12,832.46. The S&P 500, also rose, gaining, 0.80% to 4,184.60.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Consumer discretionary shares rose by 1.5% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included GigaCloud Technology Inc. GCT, up 21%, and PDD Holdings Inc. PDD, up 14%.
• In trading on Friday, utilities shares fell 0.5%.

Top Headline

The U.S. trade deficit in goods increased to $96.8 billion in April versus a revised $84.6 billion in the prior month.

Equities Trading UP

• Elevation Oncology, Inc. ELEV shares shot up 56% to $4.70 after adding over 15% on Thursday.
• Shares of MediaAlpha, Inc. MAX got a boost, shooting 28% to $9.73 after White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd. and WM Hinson commenced a tender offer for up to 5 million shares of MediaAlpha stock.
• Arcus Biosciences, Inc. RCUS shares were also up, gaining 25% to $21.83. Citigroup maintained Arcus Biosciences with a Buy.

Equities Trading DOWN

• SunCar Technology Group Inc. SDA shares dropped 23% to $11.60 amid continued volatility following the recent completion of the company's combination with Goldenbridge Acquisition to become a publicly-traded company.
• Shares of Tilray Brands, Inc. TLRY were down 21% to $1.87 after the company announced pricing of a registered offering of $150 million of unsecured convertible senior notes.
• Canaan Inc. CAN was down, falling 15% to $2.2220 after the company reported worse-than-expected first-quarter results.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.4% to $72.86 while gold traded up 0.3% at $1,949.80.

Silver traded up 1.8% to $23.32 on Friday while copper rose 2.4% to $3.6715.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.9%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.7% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.4% The German DAX climbed 0.9% French CAC 40 rose 1.1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index rose 0.7%.

Consumer confidence in Italy fell to 105.1 in May from 105.5 in April, while manufacturing confidence index in Italy dropped to 101.4 in May versus a revised reading of 102.8. The consumer confidence indicator in France came un unchanged at 83 in May. Retail sales volumes in the UK increased by 0.5% from a month ago in April.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed higher on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 0.37% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index gaining 0.35%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex rose 1%.

The index of leading economic indicators in Japan fell to 97.7 in March from a final reading of 98.2 a month ago, while index of coincident economic indicators rose to 98.8 in March from 98.7 in the previous month. Retail sales in Australia came in unchanged from the previous month at AUD 35.3 billion in April.

Economics

• The U.S. trade deficit in goods increased to $96.8 billion in April versus a revised $84.6 billion in the prior month.
• Personal spending in the U.S. rose 0.8% month-over-month in April, while personal income increased by 0.4%.
• The personal consumption expenditure price index in the U.S. rose 0.4% month-over-month in April versus a 0.1% growth in March.
• Wholesale inventories in the U.S. dropped 0.2% month-over-month in April versus a 0.3% decline in March.

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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 107,081,650 cases with around 1,164,930 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,988,420 cases and 531,850 deaths, while France reported over 40,070,560 COVID-19 cases with 167,200 deaths. In total, there were at least 689,274,730 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,882,700 deaths.