Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.51 percent to 26,353.10 while the NASDAQ declined 0.15 percent to 7,884. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.09 percent to 2,875.91.
Leading and Lagging Sectors
Thursday afternoon, the energy shares rose 0.7 percent. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Extraction Oil & Gas, Inc. XOG 12.97% up 12 percent, and Penn Virginia Corporation PVAC 6.31% up 8 percent.
In trading on Thursday, information technology shares fell 0.8 percent.
Top Headline
Constellation Brands STZ 7.1% reported upbeat results for its fourth quarter on Thursday.
Constellation Brands reported quarterly earnings of $1.84 per share on sales of $1.797 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $1.72 per share on sales of $1.73 billion.
Constellation Brands said it expects FY20 comparable earnings of $8.50 to $8.80 per share. The company agreed to sell around 30 of its brands from its wine and spirits portfolio to E. & J. Gallo Winery for $1.7 billion.
Equities Trading UP
Shineco Inc TYHT 31.19% shares got a boost, shooting up 29 percent to $1.41 after the company entered into a strategic cooperation agreement with Xingshan People's Government for the construction of an industrial hemp planting base.
Shares of Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp TNXP 20.6% shot up 24 percent to $2.8912. Tonix, a biopharma company developing treatments for serious neuropsychiatric and central nervous system conditions, said it plans to expand its TNX-102 SL 5.6 mg program beyond post-traumatic stress disorder. TNX-102 SL, or Tonmya, a non-opioid, centrally acting analgesic, is the company's lead late-stage assetbeing evaluated for PTSD in a Phase 3 trial.
Recro Pharma, Inc. REPH 27.92% shares were also up, gaining 26 percent to $8.20 after the company announced a reorganization plan in its acute care segment and raised FY19 sales guidance.
Equities Trading DOWN
InspireMD Inc NSPR 40.44% shares dropped 44 percent to $4.01 after the company priced its 487,000 share offering at $5 per share.
Shares of Ocean Power Technologies Inc OPTT 59.41% were down 60 percent to $3.1071 after surging 55.20 percent on Wednesday. Ocean Power Technologies announced a $15 million offering priced at $3.50 per share.
eMagin Corporation EMAN 26.85% was down, falling around 28 percent to $0.5601 after the company announced a $20 million offering, comprised of common stock and warrants, priced at $0.70 per share.
Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 0.3 percent to $62.66 while gold traded down 0.1 percent to $1,295.20.
Silver traded down 0.1 percent Thursday to $15.095, while copper fell 1.1 percent to $2.9155.
Eurozone
European shares closed mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.27 percent, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.49 percent, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.23 percent. Meanwhile the German DAX gained 0.28 percent, and the French CAC 40 fell 0.09 percent while U.K. shares fell 0.22 percent.
Economics
Jobless claims dropped 10,000 to 202,000 in the latest week. However, economists were expecting a reading of 216,000.
Domestic supplies of natural gas gained 23 billion cubic feet for the week ended March 22, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts projected a gained of 10 billion cubic feet.
Data on money supply for the recent week will be released at 4:30 p.m. ET.
Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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EUR/USD treads water just above 1.0400 post-US data
Another sign of the good health of the US economy came in response to firm flash US Manufacturing and Services PMIs, which in turn reinforced further the already strong performance of the US Dollar, relegating EUR/USD to the 1.0400 neighbourhood on Friday.
GBP/USD remains depressed near 1.2520 on stronger Dollar
Poor results from the UK docket kept the British pound on the back foot on Thursday, hovering around the low-1.2500s in a context of generalized weakness in the risk-linked galaxy vs. another outstanding day in the Greenback.
Gold keeps the bid bias unchanged near $2,700
Persistent safe haven demand continues to prop up the march north in Gold prices so far on Friday, hitting new two-week tops past the key $2,700 mark per troy ounce despite extra strength in the Greenback and mixed US yields.
Geopolitics back on the radar
Rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine caused renewed unease in the markets this week. Putin signed an amendment to Russian nuclear doctrine, which allows Russia to use nuclear weapons for retaliating against strikes carried out with conventional weapons.
Eurozone PMI sounds the alarm about growth once more
The composite PMI dropped from 50 to 48.1, once more stressing growth concerns for the eurozone. Hard data has actually come in better than expected recently – so ahead of the December meeting, the ECB has to figure out whether this is the PMI crying wolf or whether it should take this signal seriously. We think it’s the latter.
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