Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow jumps 400 points; CorMedix shares slide

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 1.19% to 34,424.80 while the NASDAQ rose 2.41% to 13,440.75. The S&P also rose, gaining 1.62% to 4,179.15.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 32,853,340 cases with around 584,490 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 24,046,800 cases and 262,310 deaths, while Brazil reported over 15,433,980 COVID-19 cases with 430,410 deaths. In total, there were at least 161,224,500 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 3,345,930 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed 2.8% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Gevo, Inc. GEVO 22.27%, up 23%, and Range Resources Corporation RRC 14.55%, up 14%.

In trading on Friday, health care shares rose by just 0.6%.

Top Headline

Walt Disney Co DIS 2.44% reported upbeat earnings for its second quarter, while sales missed expectations.

Disney's revenue in the quarter was $15.6 billion, a year-over-year decline of 13%. The revenue figure came in lower than estimates of $15.9 billion. The company reported adjusted earnings per share of 79 cents in the second quarter, up from 60 cents in the prior year’s second quarter. Analysts were expecting earnings of $0.28 per share.

Disney+ ended the second quarter with 103.6 million subscribers. The company had 94.9 million subscribers at the end of the first quarter.

Equities Trading UP

LifeMD, Inc. LFMD 31.18% shares shot up 33% to $8.63 after the company reported upbeat quarterly earnings and raised FY21 sales guidance.

Shares of Dillard's, Inc. DDS 20.82% got a boost, shooting 20% to $122.61 after the company reported Q1 net income of $7.25 per share, versus a year-ago net loss of $6.94 per share. Its sales also jumped to $1.33 billion from $786.70 million.

HyreCar Inc. HYRE 45.13% shares were also up, gaining 44% to $12.90 after the company reported Q1 results.

Equities Trading DOWN

PolarityTE, Inc. PTE 20.35% shares tumbled 21% to $0.9809 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q1 EPS results.

Shares of CorMedix Inc. CRMD 19.31% were down 20% to $6.03 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q1 earnings.

Solid Biosciences Inc. SLDB 20.5% was down, falling 21% to $3.4905 after the company reported Q1 results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 2.4% to $65.34, while gold traded up 0.9% to $1,841.10.

Silver traded up 1.4% Friday to $27.45 while copper fell 0.7% to $4.6565.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 1.19%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 2% and the German DAX 30 gained 1.43%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 rose 1.15%, French CAC 40 rose 1.54% and Italy’s FTSE MIB climbed 1.14%.

Spanish consumer prices increased 2.2% year-over-year in April.

Economics

Retail sales stalled in April following a revised 10.7% jump in March.

US import prices rose 0.7% in April, while prices for US exports rose 0.8%.

US industrial production increased 0.7% for April.

US business inventories rose 0.3% for March.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index declined to 82.8 in May from 88.3 in April.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs rose by 8 to 352 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.