Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Dips 500 Points; NeuroMetrix Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded down 1.4% to 35,410 while the NASDAQ fell 2.12% to 14,577.79. The S&P also fell, dropping, 1.60% to 4,588.10.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 67,631,190 cases with around 874,320 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 37,618,270 cases and 486,780 deaths, while Brazil reported over 23,083,290 COVID-19 cases with 621,260 deaths. In total, there were at least 331,801,530 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,565,720 deaths.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares fell by just 0.5% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Battalion Oil Corporation BATL, up 8% and Forum Energy Technologies, Inc. FET up 5%.

In trading on Tuesday, financials shares fell by 2.5%.

Top Headline

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GS reported weaker-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

Goldman Sachs posted quarterly earnings of $10.81 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $11.73 per share. The company’s quarterly revenue came in at $12.64 billion, versus expectations of $12.01 billion. Goldman Sachs said fourth-quarter investment banking revenue totaled $3.8 billion, representing an increase of 45% year-over-year.

Equities Trading UP

NeuroMetrix, Inc. NURO shares shot up 33% to $6.53. The FDA has granted Breakthrough Designation to NeuroMetrix’s Quell technology for reducing moderate to severe symptoms of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) that have persisted for at least 6-months following the end of chemotherapy.

Shares of Activision Blizzard, Inc. ATVI got a boost, shooting 25% to $81.81. Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it plans to acquire game developer and interactive entertainment content publisher Activision Blizzard for $95 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion.

Mainz Biomed B.V. MYNZ shares were also up, gaining 36% to $28.42 after jumping 27% on Friday.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Dyne Therapeutics, Inc. DYN shares tumbled 12% to $8.16. The FDA placed a clinical hold on Dyne Therapeutics investigational New Drug (IND) application to initiate a clinical trial of DYNE-251 in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) amenable to skipping exon 51.

Shares of China SXT Pharmaceuticals, Inc. SXTC were down 60% to $0.2169 after the company priced a $3.5 million underwritten public offering of ordinary shares.

Silvergate Capital Corporation SI was down, falling 22% to $108.37 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 EPS results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.3% to $84.90, while gold traded down 0.1% to $1,814.80.

Silver traded up 2.6% Tuesday to $23.51 while copper fell 0.6% to $4.3925.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 0.97%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.63%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.65%. The German DAX dropped 1.01%, French CAC 40 fell 0.94% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.74%.

The ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment for the Eurozone increased by 22.6 points to a reading of 49.4 in January, while German ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment climbed 22.6 points to 51.7 in January. Italy’s trade surplus shrank to EUR 4.163 billion in November from EUR 6.864 billion in the year-ago month.

The UK unemployment rate dropped to 4.1% in the three months to November, recording the lowest level since the three months to June 2020, while number of employed people rose by 60,000 on quarter to 32.475 million during the three months to November.

Economics

The New York Empire State Manufacturing Index declined to -0.7 in January from 31.9 in the previous month.

The NAHB housing market index declined by 1 point to a reading of 83 in January from a ten-month high level of 84 in December.

Check out the full economic calendar here