Mid-day market update: Arcadia Biosciences jumps following strong Q4 sales; The9 Limited shares slide

Midway through trading Wednesday, the Dow traded up 0.01% to 33,071.25 while the NASDAQ rose 1.79% to 13,278.52. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.63% to 3,983.38.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 30,394,180 cases with around 550,990 deaths. Brazil reported over 12,658,100 COVID-19 cases with 317,640 deaths, while India confirmed a total of at least 12,149,330 cases and 162,460 deaths. In total, there were at least 128,301,660 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 2,805,970 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares rose 1.7% on Wednesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Square, Inc. SQ 7.69%, up 8%, and GTY Technology Holdings Inc. GTYH 9.42%, up 9%.

In trading on Wednesday, energy shares fell 0.7%.

Top Headline

Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. WBA 5.66% reported better-than-expected earnings for its second quarter, while sales missed views.

Walgreens posted quarterly continuing operations adjusted earnings of $1.26 per share, exceeding analysts’ estimates of $1.11 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $32.80 billion, versus expectations of $35.53 billion.

Walgreens raised FY21 EPS guidance to mid-to-high single digit growth.

Equities Trading UP

Greenlane Holdings, Inc. GNLN 22.98% shares shot up 33% to $5.43 after the company and KushCo announced a merger agreement. Greenlane also reported Q4 results.

Shares of Wah Fu Education Group Limited WAFU 72.79% got a boost, shooting 66% to $13.72 after the company swung to a profit in the first half of fiscal year 2021.

Arcadia Biosciences, Inc. RKDA 21.67% shares were also up, gaining 23% to $2.8617 after the company announced better-than-expected Q4 sales.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

The9 Limited NCTY 20.29% shares tumbled 26% to $30.73 after the company reported pricing of 3,765,100 ADS bought deal offering at $33.20 per ADS.

Shares of VirTra, Inc. VTSI 25.09% were down 27% to $5.82. VirTra shares jumped over 66% on Tuesday after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 results.

9 Meters Biopharma, Inc. NMTR 19.49% was down, falling 20% to $1.09 after the company priced an underwritten public offering of 30,000,000 shares at $1.00 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.1% to $60.57, while gold traded up 0.7% to $1,697.40.

Silver traded up 0.6% Wednesday to $24.290 while copper rose 0.5% to $4.00.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.08%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.15% and the German DAX 30 dropped 0.09%. Meanwhile, the French CAC 40 fell 0.37%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.51% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.07%.

The Eurozone consumer price inflation rose to 1.3% year-over-year in March from 0.9% a month ago. Annual inflation rate in France rose to 1.1% in March, while industrial producer prices rose 0.8% in March. German unemployment rate dropped to 4.5% in February.

The UK GDP shrank 7.3% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, while house prices rose 5.7% year-over-year in March. The country’s current account gap increased to GBP 26.3 billion in the fourth quarter from a revised GBP 14.3 billion in the third quarter.

Economics

Private businesses in the US hired 517,000 workers in March, the ADP said.

The Chicago PMI rose 6.8 points to a reading of 66.3 in March.

The pending home sales index dropped 0.5% year-over-year in February following a revised 13.5% surge in January.

US crude-oil inventories dropped 900,000 barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

Data on farm prices for February will be released at 3:00 p.m. ET.