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. (NYSE: SQ), up 8%, and GTY Technology Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: GTYH), up 9%.
In trading on Wednesday, energy shares fell 0.7%.
Top Headline
Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: WBA) 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. (NASDAQ: GNLN) 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 (NASDAQ: WAFU) 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. (NASDAQ: RKDA) 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 (NASDAQ: NCTY) 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. (NASDAQ: VTSI) 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. (NASDAQ: NMTR) 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.
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