Mid-afternoon market update: Dow jumps 475 points; Intercept Pharmaceuticals shares slide
|Toward the end of trading Monday, the Dow traded up 1.9% to 25,490 while the NASDAQ rose 0.81% to 9,836.65. The S&P also rose, gaining 1.07% to 3,041.17.
The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 2,549,060 cases with around 125,800 deaths. Brazil confirmed a total of over 1,344,140 COVID-19 cases with 57,620 deaths, while Russia reported a total of at least 640,240 confirmed cases and 9,150 deaths. In total, there were at least 10,154,980 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 502,040 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Leading and Lagging Sectors
Industrial shares climbed 2.7% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Gencor Industries, Inc. GENC 16.18%, up 14%, and Plug Power Inc. PLUG 16.54%, up 20%.
In trading on Monday, health care shares rose by just 0.6%.
Top Headline
Coty Inc. COTY 13.07% agreed to acquire a 20% stake in Kim Kardashian West's cosmetics line.
The New York-based cosmetics veteran paid $200 million for the stake, valuing the brand KKW at $1 billion.
Equities Trading UP
Landcadia Holdings II, Inc. LCA 38.19% shares shot up 38% to $13.94 after the special purpose acquisition company acquired Golden Nugget Online Gaming.
Shares of BioHiTech Global, Inc. BHTG 65.45% got a boost, shooting 59% to $2.62 amid chatter the company's aerosol product can kill coronavirus.
Ideanomics, Inc. IDEX 41.1% shares were also up, gaining 41% to $2.06 after the company disclosed that its Mobile Energy Global (MEG) subsidiary, has completed delivery of multiple orders for a total of 117 units.
Equities Trading DOWN
TravelCenters of America Inc. TA 22.39% shares tumbled 23% to $16.83 after announcing a $75 million common stock offering.
Shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ICPT 39.42% were down 40% to $46.67 on the back of an FDA rejection of its lead non-alcoholic steatohepatitis drug. Intercept said the FDA handed down a complete response letter related to its NDA for obeticholic acid, which is being evaluated as a treatment option for fibrosis due to NASH. The company noted that the FDA said the predicted benefit of the drug — based on a surrogate histopathologic endpoint —remains uncertain, and does not sufficiently outweigh the potential risks to support accelerated approval. Oppenheimer and Wells Fargo downgraded the stock.
Heron Therapeutics, Inc. HRTX 29.31% was down, falling 27% to $14.48 after the FDA said it cannot approve the company's new drug application for HTX-011 without additional information.
Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 3% to $39.64, while gold traded up 0.1% to $1,781.10.
Silver traded down 0.5% Monday to $17.945, while copper rose 1.4% to $2.695.
Euro zone
European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.44%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.39%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index climbed 1.69%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 gained 1.18%, French CAC 40 gained 0.73% and UK shares rose 1.08%.
Economics
U.S. pending home sales climbed 44.3% in May, following a 21.8% drop in April.
The Dallas Fed manufacturing index climbed to -6.1 in June, versus a prior reading of -49.2.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams will speak at 3:00 p.m. ET.
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