Toward the end of trading Wednesday, the Dow traded down 0.45% to 35,210.04 while the NASDAQ fell 0.28% to 14,466.47. The S&P also fell, dropping, 0.29% to 4,563.94.
The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 68,767,000 cases with around 877,240 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 37,901,240 cases and 487,220 deaths, while Brazil reported over 23,215,550 COVID-19 cases with 621,570 deaths. In total, there were at least 335,521,830 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,574,720 deaths.
Leading and Lagging Sectors
Consumer staples shares gained 1.2% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Splash Beverage Group, Inc. (NYSE:SBEV), up 28% and Unilever PLC (NYSE:UL) up 9%.
In trading on Wednesday, financials shares fell by 0.6%.
Top Headline
Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC) reported better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.
Bank of America posted quarterly earnings of $0.82 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.76 per share. The company’s quarterly revenue came in at $22.06 billion, versus expectations of $22.18 billion.
Equities Trading UP
Zogenix, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZGNX) shares shot up 67% to $26.15 after the company announced it will be acquired by UCB for approximately $1.9 billion.
Shares of Splash Beverage Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SBEV) got a boost, shooting 27% to $4.1199 after the company announced it has received authorization to sell its Pulpoloco Sangria line in 187 of Ralph's Grocery stores.
NSTS Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NSTS) shares were also up, gaining 26% to $12.63 after the company priced its IPO at $10 per share.
Check out these big movers of the day
Equities Trading DOWN
Cardiff Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRDF) shares tumbled 22% to $4.8150 after the company posted new data from Phase 1b/2 trial of onvansertib combined with standard-of-care (SOC) FOLFIRI/bevacizumab for second-line KRAS-mutated metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).
Shares of Yumanity Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:YMTX) were down 18% to $2.00. The FDA has placed a partial clinical hold on Yumanity Therapeutics multidose clinical trials of YTX-7739, currently being developed for Parkinson's disease.
OncoCyte Corporation (NASDAQ:OCX) was down, falling 16% to $1.8379. OncoCyte announced a development and co-marketing agreement for two distributed in vitro diagnostic assays on Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Ion Torrent Genexus System.
Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 1.8% to $86.97, while gold traded up 1.7% to $1,843.20.
Silver traded up 3.1% Wednesday to $24.23 while copper rose 1.9% to $4.4665.
Euro zone
European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.23%, London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.35%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.08%. The German DAX climbed 0.24%, French CAC 40 rose 0.55% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.41%.
The Eurozone current account surplus shrank to EUR 26.0 billion in November from EUR 27.5 billion in the year-ago month. Germany’s annual inflation rate was confirmed at 5.3% in December, notching the highest level since June 1992.
Annual inflation rate in the UK climbed to 5.4% in December from 5.1% in the previous month, while headline rate of output prices fell to 9.3% year-over-year in December.
Economics
Housing starts rose 1.4% to an annualized rate of 1.702 million in December, while building permits jumped 9.1% to an annual rate of 1.873 million.
The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index jumped 15.2% year-over-year for the week ended January 15.
