Mid-afternoon market update: Dow edges lower, Helbiz shares spike higher

Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.11% to 33,932.34 while the NASDAQ rose 0.18% to 14,740.41. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.09% to 4,353.81.

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

Energy shares rose 0.4% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Oasis Petroleum Inc. OAS +undefined% (Get Free Alerts for OAS), up 7% and Frontline Ltd. FRO +undefined% (Get Free Alerts for FRO) up 6%.

In trading on Tuesday, industrials shares fell 0.8%.

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 98% to $28.46. 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 15% to $12.33 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 24% to $45.81 after the company announced plans to purchase Envigo.

Equities Trading DOWN

Edesa Biotech, Inc. EDSA +29.98% shares tumbled 26% to $8.88 on profit-taking after the stock rallied over 100% yesterday.

Shares of Verrica Pharmaceuticals Inc. VRCA +8.56% were down 9% to $10.97 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 +11.39% was down, falling 13% to $187.48 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 0.3% to $70.53, while gold traded up 0.7% to $1,776.60.

Silver traded up 1.6% Tuesday to $22.55 while copper fell 0.1% to $4.1105.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 1%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.16% and the German DAX 30 gained 1.43%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 rose 1.12%, French CAC 40 jumped 1.5% and Italy’s FTSE MIB climbed 1.22%.

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.