Mid-afternoon market update: Nasdaq falls over 1%, Reata Pharmaceuticals shares plummet

Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.17% to 35,814.21 while the NASDAQ fell 1.13% to 15,608.30. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.28% to 4,688.20.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 50,422,410 cases with around 813,900 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 34,666,240 cases and 474,110 deaths, while Brazil reported over 22,167,780 COVID-19 cases with 616,290 deaths. In total, there were at least 268,226,410 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 5,298,080 deaths.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares climbed 0.6% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Heron Therapeutics, Inc. HRTX +11.38% (Get Free Alerts for HRTX), up 14% and Aptinyx Inc. APTX +9.45% (Get Free Alerts for APTX) up 15%.

In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell 0.8%.

Top Headline

US initial jobless claims fell by 43,000 to 184,000 in the week ending December 4th, notching the lowest level since September 1969. Analysts were expecting a reading of 215,000 for the latest week.

Equities Trading UP

Inspira Technologies Oxy B.H.N. Ltd. IINN +84.01% shares shot up 84% to $4.95 after the company signed an exclusive summary distribution agreement with Innovimed Sp. z o.o, a master distributor specializing in medical solutions in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Shares of Boxed, Inc. NYSEBOXD got a boost, shooting 40% to $12.67 after the company said it will further integrate with Google Cloud to power global platform technology solutions.

American Virtual Cloud Technologies, Inc. AVCT +82.52% shares were also up, gaining 57% to $1.6207 after the company announced it projects revenues of its Kandy Business Unit to grow from $14.3 million in 2020 to approximately $18.8 million in 2021 and in excess of $37 million in 2022.

Equities Trading DOWN

Beyond Air, Inc. XAIR -20.45% shares tumbled 22% to $8.23 after the company said, based on communication with the FDA, it no longer believes that the U.S. commercial launch of LungFit PH will take place prior to December 31, 2021.

Shares of Tecnoglass Inc. TGLS -36.02% were down 44% to $19.04 after Hindenburg Research issued a bearish report on the company.

Reata Pharmaceuticals, Inc. RETA -46.51% was down, falling 47% to $29.07. The FDA's Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee voted that the agency should not approve Reata Pharmaceuticals’ bardoxolone methyl capsules to slow the progression of chronic kidney disease in those with the rare Alport syndrome. Goldman Sachs downgraded Reata Pharmaceuticals from Buy to Neutral.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.6% to $71.20, while gold traded down 0.5% to $1,776.50.

Silver traded down 1.9% Thursday to $22.015 while copper fell 1.5% to $4.33.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 0.08%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.93% and the German DAX 30 dropped 0.30%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.22%, French CAC 40 fell 0.09% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.24%.

German trade surplus shrank to EUR 12.8 billion in October from EUR 19.7 billion in the year-ago period. Imports climbed 17.3% to a record high of EUR 108.5 billion. Germany's current account surplus narrowed to EUR 15.4 billion in October from EUR 24.4 billion.

Economics

US initial jobless claims fell by 43,000 to 184,000 in the week ending December 4th, notching the lowest level since September 1969. Analysts were expecting a reading of 215,000 for the latest week.

Wholesale inventories rose 2.3% to $759.4 billion in October.

US natural-gas supplies dropped 59 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.