Mid-afternoon market update: Dow falls over 100 points; Pacific Mercantile Bancorp (PMBC Stock) shares surge

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Toward the end of trading Tuesday, the Dow traded down 0.43% to 32,591.06 while the NASDAQ fell 0.28% to 13,339.04. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.19% to 3,933.10.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 29,869,510 cases with around 542,940 deaths. Brazil reported over 12,047,520 COVID-19 cases with 295,420 deaths, while India confirmed a total of at least 11,686,790 cases and 160,160 deaths. In total, there were at least 123,719,950 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 2,724,460 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Utilities shares rose 1.8% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included CMS Energy Corporation CMS 3.44%, up 3%, and NextEra Energy, Inc. NEE 3.43%, up 3%.

In trading on Tuesday, materials shares fell 1.8%.

Top Headline

IHS Markit Ltd. INFO 0.55% reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter on Tuesday.

IHS Markit posted quarterly earnings of $0.71 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.70 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $1.12 billion, versus expectations of $1.11 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Dolphin Entertainment, Inc. DLPN 210.83% shares shot up 172% to $14.83 after the company announced it launched a non-fungible token (NFT) creation and marketing division.

Shares of Benitec Biopharma Inc. BNTC 186.21% got a boost, shooting 101% to $6.42. The surge follows Morgan Stanley disclosing in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after the markets closed on Monday that it had increased its stake by about 5.2% in the Australian biotechnology company.

Pacific Mercantile Bancorp PMBC 10.92% shares were also up, gaining 10% to $8.85. Banc of California, reported the purchase of Pacific Mercantile Bancorp for $9.77 per share in an all-stock deal.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Frequency Therapeutics, Inc. FREQ 76.49% shares tumbled 77% to $8.35 after the company announced the interim FX-322 Phase 2a results showed that four weekly injections did not demonstrate improvements in hearing measures versus placebo.

Shares of Anixa Biosciences, Inc. ANIX 31.81% were down 29% to $4.79 after the company priced its roughly 1.9 million shares common stock offering at $5.25 per share.

Windtree Therapeutics, Inc. WINT 31.3% was down, falling 31% to $2.6450 after the company reported pricing of $30 million public offering at $3.25 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 6% to $57.85, while gold traded down 0.7% to $1,725.20.

Silver traded down 2.3% Tuesday to $25.175while copper fell 2% to $4.0580.

Euro zone

European shares closed mostly lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 0.2%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.56% and the German DAX 30 gained 0.03%. Meanwhile, the French CAC 40 fell 0.39%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.4% and Italy’s FTSE MIB declined 0.61%.

The number of employed people in the UK dropped by 147,000 quarter-over-quarter to 32.37 million during the three months to January of 2021, while number of people claiming jobless benefits rose by 86.6 thousand to 2.7 million in February.

Economics

US current account gap increased by $7.6 billion to $188.5 billion during the fourth quarter.

US new home sales dropped 18.2% to an annual rate of 775,000 in February.

The Richmond Fed manufacturing index increase to 17 in March from previous reading of 14.

Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard is set to speak at 3:45 p.m. ET.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard will speak at 4:20 p.m. ET.