In mid-trading on Wednesday, the Dow rose 0.02% to 33,437.41, while the NASDAQ rose 0.23% to 13,729.29. The S&P also rose 0.16% to 4080.61.
The United States has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, with a total of 30,847,730 cases, of which about 556,520 are deaths. Brazil has recorded over 13,100,580 cases of COVID-19, of which 336,940 are deaths, while India has confirmed a total of 12,801,780 cases and 166,170 deaths. In total, there have been at least 132,534,870 COVID-19 cases and more than 2,875,870 deaths worldwide, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Leading and lagging sectors
Communication services shares rose 0.6% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the growth leaders in the sector included Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP), up 6%, and IZEA Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ: IZEA), up 7%.
In trading on Wednesday, stocks of materials fell 0.9%.
Top heading
RPM International Inc. (NYSE: RPM) posted better-than-expected third-quarter earnings.
RPM reported quarterly earnings of $ 0.38 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $ 0.29 per share. The company posted quarterly sales of $ 1.27 billion against expectations of $ 1.21 billion.
Upward trading stocks
UTime Limited The stock (NASDAQ: UTME) rose 106% to $ 80.50. UTime shares jumped 875% on Tuesday after the company priced its IPO at $ 4 per share.
Promotions Ouster, Inc. (NYSE: OUST) surged 15% to $ 9.06 after Citigroup began covering Buy shares and announced a target price of $ 17.
SOS Limited (NYSE: SOS) also rose 22% to hit $ 5.49. A late Tuesday night Reddit post that has since been deleted urged traders to buy stocks to begin a short squeeze over the next five trading days.
Look at these great figures of the day
Stocks are trading down
FibroGen, Inc. (NASDAQ: FGEN) shares fell 38% to $ 21.33 after an unclear disclosure of roxadustat, the company’s drug to treat anemia in patients with chronic kidney disease. In preparation for an advisory committee meeting ahead of the potential approval of roxadustat, FibroGen said it realized it had submitted revised information to the FDA about the drug’s cardiovascular safety.
Promotions GEO Group, Inc. (NYSE: GEO) declined 20% to $ 6.22 after the company announced it was suspending quarterly dividend payments to “maximize debt repayment at the time of corporate assessment.”
Homology Medicines, Inc. (NASDAQ: FIXX) fell 18% to $ 7.62 after the company valued its underwriting public offering at about $ 50.0 million.
Commodities
On the commodity side, oil dropped 1.4% to $ 58.52, while gold fell 0.1% to $ 1,741.80.
Silver was up 0.1% on Wednesday to hit $ 25.24, while copper fell 1.2% to $ 4.0675.
Eurozone
European stocks were mixed today. The Eurozone STOXX 600 index fell 0.12%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.41%, and the German DAX 30 fell 0.05%. Meanwhile, France’s CAC 40 is up 0.2%, London’s FTSE 100 is up 1.01% and Italy’s FTSE MIB is up 0.01%.
The eurozone composite PMI was revised upward to 53.2 in March from a preliminary estimate of 52.5, while the services PMI rose to 49.6 in March from a preliminary reading of 48.8.
In March, the UK service PMI was lowered to 56.3 from a preliminary reading of 56.8. The French composite PMI was revised up to 50 in March from a preliminary estimate of 49.5, while the German composite PMI rose to 57.3 in March from a preliminary reading of 56.8.
Economy
The US trade deficit widened to $ 71.1 billion in February from a revised $ 67.8 billion in the previous month.
San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly will deliver the keynote speech at 1:00 pm ET.
The Federal Open Markets Committee will release minutes of its last meeting at 2:00 pm ET.
February consumer credit data will be released at 3:00 pm ET.
Check out the full economic calendar here
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