Mid-day market update: Gold rises 1%, Verrica Pharmaceuticals shares slide

Midway through trading Tuesday, the Dow traded up 0.44% to 34,119.86 while the NASDAQ rose 0.66% to 14,810.89. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.43% to 4,376.48.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 42,289,820 cases with around 676,090 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 33,504,530 cases and 445,380 deaths, while Brazil reported over 21,247,660 COVID-19 cases with 590,950 deaths. In total, there were at least 229,132,900 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,701,330 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Real estate shares rose 1% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. AHT +undefined% (Get Free Alerts for AHT), up 4% and Xinyuan Real Estate Co., Ltd. XIN +undefined% (Get Free Alerts for XIN) up 4%.

In trading on Tuesday, industrials shares fell 0.5%.

Top Headline

AutoZone, Inc. AZO +undefined% reported better-than-expected results for its fourth quarter on Tuesday.

AutoZone reported quarterly earnings of $35.72 per share, beating analysts’ expectations of $29.87 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at 4.90 billion, exceeding estimates of $4.56 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Helbiz, Inc. HLBZ +undefined% shares shot up 156% to $36.74. Helbiz Media, the media arm of Helbiz announced a deal with Amazon Italy, a unit of Amazon.com.

Shares of Viridian Therapeutics, Inc. VRDN +undefined% got a boost, shooting 18% to $12.63 after the company priced an underwritten public offering with approximately $85.0 million gross proceeds. Viridian will offer 6.18 million shares at $11.00 per share, and 23,126 shares of series B preferred stock at a public offering price of $733.37 per share, convertible into approximately 1.5 million shares..

Inotiv, Inc. NOTV +undefined% shares were also up, gaining 27% to $46.63 after the company announced plans to purchase Envigo.

Equities Trading DOWN

Edesa Biotech, Inc. EDSA +23.24% shares tumbled 18% to $9.81 on profit-taking after the stock rallied over 100% yesterday.

Shares of Verrica Pharmaceuticals Inc. VRCA +8.06% were down 12% to $10.56 after the company announced the FDA issued a Complete Response Letter regarding its New Drug Application for VP-102 for the treatment of molluscum contagiosum.

RBC Bearings Incorporated ROLL +14.82% was down, falling 16% to $181.50 after the company announced a common stock offering of 3 million shares and $400 million in aggregate liquidation preference of series A mandatory convertible preferred stock.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.2% to $70.45, while gold traded up 1% to $1,782.00.

Silver traded up 2.2% Tuesday to $22.70 while copper fell 1.3% to $4.0630.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.89%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.07% and the German DAX 30 gained 1.2%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.96%, French CAC 40 jumped 1.3% and Italy’s FTSE MIB climbed 1.04%.

Public sector net borrowing in the UK fell to GBP 20.5 billion in August, GBP 5.5 billion less than a year ago.

Economics

The Federal Open Market Committee will begin its two-day policy meeting today.

Housing starts rose 3.9% to an annual rate of 1.615 million units in August, while building permits increased 6.0% to 1.728 million.

The current account gap increased to $190 billion in the second quarter from a revised $89 billion gap in the previous period.