Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.12% to 35,411.14 while the NASDAQ rose 0.90% to 14,638.13. The S&P also rose, gaining, 0.44% to 4,597.47.
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
Information technology shares gained 1.2% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included The Glimpse Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRAR), up 5% and Opera Limited (NASDAQ:OPRA) up 8%.
In trading on Wednesday, financials shares fell by 0.7%.
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 $26.12 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 29% to $4.19 after the company announced it has received authorization to sell its Pulpoloco Sangria line in 187 of Ralph's Grocery stores.
Gamida Cell Ltd. (NASDAQ:GMDA) shares were also up, gaining 17% to $2.5997. Gamida Cell announced that following receipt of positive Type B meeting correspondence from the FDA. The company said it plans to initiate a rolling biologics license application submission for omidubicel, a potentially life-saving treatment for patients with blood cancers in need of stem cell transplant.
Check out these big movers of the day
Equities Trading DOWN
Cardiff Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRDF) shares tumbled 20% to $4.89 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 19% to $1.98 after the company reported partial clinical hold by the US FDA on multidose clinical trials for YTX-7739.
Orion Energy Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:OESX) was down, falling 18% to $3.28 after the company lowered its FY22 sales forecast.
Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 1.2% to $86.48, while gold traded up 0.3% to $1,817.00.
Silver traded up 1.3% Wednesday to $23.785 while copper rose 1.1% to $4.4315.
Euro zone
European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.6%, London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.4%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.2%. The German DAX climbed 0.6%, French CAC 40 rose 0.9% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.1%.
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.
The Treasury is set to auction 20-year bonds at 1:00 p.m. ET.
