US Stocks Mixed; Trade Gap Widens In July

U.S. stocks traded mixed this morning, with the Dow Jones index gaining around 0.1% on Wednesday.

The Dow traded up 0.10% to 40,978.50 while the NASDAQ fell 0.23% to 17,096.94. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.01% to 5,528.99.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Utilities shares climbed by 1.1% on Wednesday.

In trading on Wednesday, information technology shares fell by 0.5%.

Top Headline

The trade deficit in the U.S. increased to $78.8 billion in July, recording the biggest gap since June 2022, versus a gap of $73 billion in June.

Equities Trading UP
                       

• Faraday Future Intelligent Electric Inc. FFIE shares shot up 62% to $5.55.
• Shares of Asset Entities Inc. ASST got a boost, surging 56% to $3.1999.
• WiSA Technologies, Inc. WISA shares were also up, gaining 83% to $1.2089 after the company announced that it executed a definitive asset purchase agreement to purchase the Datavault intellectual property and information technology assets of privately held Data Vault Holdings for $210 million.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Athira Pharma, Inc. ATHA shares dropped 76% to $0.6616 after the company released topline results from its Phase 2/3 LIFT-AD clinical trial of fosgonimeton for mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD).
• Shares of Oragenics, Inc. OGEN were down 46% to $0.5740. Oragenics priced its $4.45 million public offering of 8,106,584 shares at $0.55 per share.
• Shuttle Pharmaceuticals Holdings, Inc. SHPH was down, falling 34% to $1.39.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.1% to $69.60 while gold traded down 0.3% at $2,515.70.

Silver traded up 0.3% to $28.42 on Wednesday, while copper fell 0.3% to $4.08.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 fell 0.9%, Germany's DAX fell 0.7% and France's CAC 40 fell 0.9%. Spain's IBEX 35 Index fell 0.5%, while London's FTSE 100 fell 0.3%.

The S&P Global UK services PMI climbed to 53.7 in August from 52.5 in the prior month. Producer prices in the Eurozone rose 0.8% month-over-month in July versus a revised 0.6% increase in June. The HCOB Eurozone composite PMI was revised lower to 51 in August versus a flash reading of 51.2.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Wednesday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 falling 4.24%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index falling 1.10%, China's Shanghai Composite Index declining 0.67% and India's BSE Sensex falling 0.25%.

The HSBC India Composite PMI rose to 60.7 in August versus a flash reading of 60.5. Caixin China General Composite PMI came in unchanged at 51.2 in August.

Economics

The trade deficit in the U.S. increased to $78.8 billion in July, recording the biggest gap since June 2022, versus a gap of $73 billion in June.

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