Mid-afternoon market update: Dow rises 40 points, Meredith shares spike higher

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.12% to 34,805 while the NASDAQ fell 0.13% to 15,033.02. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.12% to 4,454.25.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 42,672,290 cases with around 684,350 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 33,594,800 cases and 446,360 deaths, while Brazil reported over 21,308,170 COVID-19 cases with 592,960 deaths. In total, there were at least 230,637,880 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,729,300 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares jumped 1% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Viking Energy Group, Inc. VKIN +4% (Get Free Alerts for VKIN), up 11% and Mammoth Energy Services, Inc. TUSK +8.53% (Get Free Alerts for TUSK) up 9%.

In trading on Friday, real estate shares fell 1%.

Top Headline

On Thursday, Nike Inc NKE +6.02% reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter, while sales missed expectations. The company also lowered its sales forecast for the full year.

Equities Trading UP

Aehr Test Systems AEHR +29.89% shares shot up 31% to $15.40 after the company reported better-than-expected Q1 results. The company also said it sees FY21 revenue of $50 million.

Shares of Unique Fabricating, Inc. UFAB +30.16% got a boost, shooting 29% to $3.2617. Form 4 filings from late Thursday showed stock purchases from multiple company’s Directors.

Meredith Corporation MDP +25.19% shares were also up, gaining 25% to $56.06. IAC/InterActiveCorp is in advanced talks to acquire magazine publisher Meredith in a deal valued at over $2.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Equities Trading DOWN

Canaan Inc. CAN +22.58% shares tumbled 23% to $5.96 amid a decrease in the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum after China's Central Bank banned all crypto transactions and vowed to stop illegal crypto mining. The company’s board recently approved a $20 million share buyback program worth outstanding ADS, each representing 15 Class A shares over the next 12 months starting from September 20.

Shares of Helbiz, Inc. HLBZ +15.65% were down 17% to $19.08. Helbiz announced its official arrival in California.

Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. ONTX +21.82% was down, falling 22% to $3.9610. Onconova Therapeutics priced an underwritten public offering of 5 million shares at $4.20 for gross proceeds of $21 million.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.8% to $73.91, while gold traded down 0.1% to $1,747.60.

Silver traded down 1.5% Friday to $22.345 while copper rose 1% to $4.2730.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 0.90%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.04% and the German DAX 30 dropped 0.72%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.38%, French CAC 40 fell 0.95% and Italy’s FTSE MIB declined 0.43%.

The United Kingdom’s GfK consumer confidence index fell to -13 for the month of September from -8 a month ago. Manufacturing confidence in Italy dropped to 113 in September from a revised level of 113.2 in August, while consumer confidence climbed to 119.6 from 116.2. The Ifo business climate indicator for Germany fell to 98.8 in September versus a revised reading of 99.6 in August.

Economics

New home sales surged 1.5% to an annual rate of 740,000 in August.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs climbed by 10 to 421 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.