Mid-afternoon market update: Dow jumps 250 points, Greensky shares spike higher

Toward the end of trading Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.72% to 34,827.73 while the NASDAQ rose 0.58% to 15,125.38. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.82% to 4,479.33.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 41,367,770 cases with around 663,960 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 33,316,750 cases and 443,490 deaths, while Brazil reported over 21,019,830 COVID-19 cases with 587,790 deaths. In total, there were at least 225,885,010 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,650,840 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed 3.2% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Uranium Royalty Corp. UROY +undefined% (Get Free Alerts for UROY), up 22% and SM Energy Company SM +undefined% (Get Free Alerts for SM) up 12%.

In trading on Wednesday, utilities shares rose by just 0.2%.

Top Headline

US industrial production rose 0.4% for August, following a 0.8% increase in the previous month.

Equities Trading UP

Indaptus Therapeutics, Inc. INDP +undefined% shares shot up 87% to $13.20 after the company announced the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a notice of allowance for claims related to the company's platform technology.

Shares of GreenSky, Inc. GSKY +undefined% got a boost, shooting 53% to $11.92. Goldman Sachs Group Inc GS +0.47% agreed to acquire specialty lender GreenSky for $2.24 billion.

Tyra Biosciences, Inc. NASDAQTYRA shares were also up, gaining 58% to $25.20 as the company priced its IPO at $17 per share.

Equities Trading DOWN

Sonim Technologies, Inc. SONM +28.18% shares tumbled 28% to $0.3749. Sonim reported a 1-for-10 reverse stock split.

Shares of Kaival Brands Innovations Group, Inc. KAVL +42.9% were down 44% to $2.5182 after the company reported Q3 earnings results.

Nuwellis, Inc. NUWE +29% was down, falling 31% to $2.55 after the company priced its 3,483,120 share common stock offering at $2.50 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2.9% to $72.48, while gold traded down 0.7% to $1,795.00.

Silver traded down 0.3% Wednesday to $23.81 while copper rose 2% to $4.4055.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 declined 0.80%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 1.65% and the German DAX 30 dropped 0.68%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.25%, French CAC 40 fell 1.04% and Italy’s FTSE MIB dropped 1.02%.

Industrial output in the Eurozone increased by 1.5% in July, while hourly labor costs fell 0.1% year-over-year in the June quarter. The annual inflation rate in France was confirmed at 1.9% in August. Annual inflation rate in the UK surged to 3.2% in August, while output prices in the UK rose 5.9% year-over-year in August.

Economics

The New York Empire State Manufacturing Index surged to 34.3 in September from 18.3 in the previous month.

The price index for US imports fell 0.3% in August, while export prices rose 0.4%.

US industrial production rose 0.4% for August.

US crude oil inventories dropped 6.4 million barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration said.