Mid-Day Market Update: Gold rises 1.5%; FreightCar America shares slide following Q1 results

Midway through trading Monday, the Dow traded down 0.54% to 34,194.82 while the NASDAQ fell 0.92% to 13,306.55. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.60% to 4,148.77.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 32,941,050 cases with around 585,970 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 24,965,460 cases and 274,390 deaths, while Brazil reported over 15,627,240 COVID-19 cases with 435,750 deaths. In total, there were at least 163,112,780 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 3,380,400 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares climbed 0.9% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Peabody Energy Corporation BTU 26.73%, up 25%, and Gevo, Inc. GEVO 11.98%, up 12%.

In trading on Monday, information technology shares fell 1.2%.

Top Headline

Discovery, Inc. DISCA 3.34% and AT&T Inc. T 1.12% announced they're in talks to merge their media assets.

AT&T owns CNN, HBO, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT and the Warner Bros. studio. Discovery owns networks including HGTV, Food Network, TLC and Animal Planet.

Equities Trading UP

Nuvve Holding Corp. NVEE 1.19% shares shot up 26% to $10.37 after the company announced an agreement with Evolve Transition Infrastructure and Stonepeak to purse a $750 million joint venture to be called Levo.

Shares of Petros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. PTPI 42.23% got a boost, shooting 47% to $4.3479 after the company swung to a profit in the first quarter.

Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. APLS 17.51% shares were also up, gaining 20% to $53.14 after the FDA approved the company’s Empaveli (pegcetacoplan) for the treatment of adults with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH).

Equities Trading DOWN

Spark Networks SE LOV 12.7% shares tumbled 20% to $4.93 after the company reported a wider-than-expected Q1 loss. Spark sees a Q2 revenue outlook of $54 million to $56 million, below the analyst consensus of $57.38 million.

Shares of FreightCar America, Inc. RAIL 20.42% were down 18% to $5.30 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q1 sales results. The company also posted a wider quarterly loss.

Americas Gold and Silver Corporation USAS 20.84% was down, falling 18% to $1.85 after the company reported a wider Q1 loss.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 1.2% to $66.14, while gold traded up 1.5% to $1,866.40.

Silver traded up 3.1% Monday to $28.22 while copper rose 1.2% to $4.7090.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.01%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.09% and the German DAX 30 dropped 0.06%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.08%, French CAC 40 fell 0.23% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.44%.

Spanish trade deficit shrank to EUR 411.9 million in March, compared to EUR 2.0 billion in the year-ago month, while annual inflation rate in Italy rose to 1.1% in April from 0.8%.