Mid-afternoon market update: S&P 500 turns negative; Vaccinex (VCNX Stock) shares spike higher

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.09% to 31,520.48 while the NASDAQ rose 0.02% to 13,868.58. However, the S&P fell 0.18% to 3,906.96.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 27,896,700 cases with around 493,110 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 10,963,390 confirmed cases and 156,110 deaths, while Brazil reported over 10,030,620 COVID-19 cases with 243,450 deaths. In total, there were at least 110,394,360 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 2,443,540 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Industrials shares rose 1.5% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Energous Corporation WATT 72.04%, up 68%, and The ExOne Company XONE 15.04%, up 16%.

In trading on Friday, utilities shares fell by 1.3%.

Top Headline

Deere & Company DE 10.82% reported better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

Deere reported quarterly earnings of $3.87 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of $2.16 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $9.11 billion, versus expectations of $7.21 billion.

Equities Trading UP

Vaccinex, Inc. VCNX 85.71% shares shot up 88% to $5.40 after the company announced the signing of multiproject deals with two prominent pharma companies that Vaccinex did not identify. The collaborations, Vaccinex said, will focus on using ActivMAb, its antibody discovery and novel viral display platform, for antibody discovery against complex antigens such as GPCRs and ion channels.

Shares of Evolus, Inc. EOLS 68.57% got a boost, shooting 70% to $12.17. Evolus, AbbVie, and Medytox announced settlement agreements to fully resolve all outstanding litigation, including the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) case regarding the sale of Jeuveau. It is a prescription medicine injected into muscles and used in adults temporarily to improve the look of moderate to severe frown lines between the eyebrows (glabellar lines).

Casa Systems Inc CASA 36.8% shares were also up, gaining 37% to $11.67 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 results and issued strong FY21 sales guidance.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

PDF Solutions, Inc. PDFS 14.15% shares tumbled 14% to $18.28 after reporting a loss for the fourth quarter.

Shares of Rackspace Technology, Inc. RXT 16.61% were down 15% to $21.14 after the company issued FY21 earnings guidance below estimates.

Conduent Incorporated CNDT 12.89% was down, falling 14% to $4.99 after the company reported Q4 earnings results.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.6% to $59.53, while gold traded up 0.3% to $1,779.70.

Silver traded up 1% Friday to $27.335 while copper rose 4.2% to $4.0660.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.53%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 1.16% and the German DAX 30 gained 0.77%. Meanwhile, the French CAC 40 rose 0.79%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.1% and Italy’s FTSE MIB rose 0.94%.

The Eurozone manufacturing PMI climbed to 57.7 in February from 54.8 in January, while services PMI fell to 44.7 from 45.4. Eurozone’s current account surplus increased to EUR 51.9 billion in December from EUR 33.4 billion in the year-ago month.

The annual inflation rate in France rose to 0.6% in January, while German producer prices rose 0.9% year-on-year in January. Retail sales in the UK tumbled 8.2% in January.

Economics

The IHS Markit manufacturing PMI declined to 58.5 in February from 59.2 in January, while services PMI climbed to 58.9 in February from 58.3 in the prior month.

US existing home sales rose 0.6% to 6.69 million units in January.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs slipped by 1 to 305 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.