Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Surges Over 200 Points; ChemoCentryx Shares Drop

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded up 0.62% to 34,761.24 while the NASDAQ rose 0.95% to 13,762.12. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.74% to 4,232.81.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 32,605,480 cases with around 580,060 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 21,491,590 cases and 234,080 deaths, while Brazil reported over 15,003,560 COVID-19 cases with 416,940 deaths. In total, there were at least 156,151,460 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 3,258,410 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares rose 1.5% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Forum Energy Technologies, Inc. FET, up 15%, and EQT Corporation EQT, up 11%.

In trading on Friday, consumer staples shares fell 0.1%.

Top Headline

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released employment data for the month of April.

The nonfarm payroll number came in at +266,000, well worse than consensus economist expectations of +1 million. The unemployment rate increased by 0.1% to 6.1%. April’s job growth represents a sharp drop from the 770,000 jobs the economy gained in March.

Equities Trading UP

Core Molding Technologies, Inc. CMT shares shot up 19% to $13.51 after the company reported higher Q1 earnings.

Shares of Epizyme, Inc. EPZM got a boost, shooting 21% to $8.27 after SVB Leerink upgraded the stock from Market Perform to Outperform and raised its price target from $12 to $16per share.

Pro-Dex, Inc. PDEX shares were also up, gaining 17% to $34.33 after reporting a rise in quarterly earnings.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

ChemoCentryx, Inc. CCXI shares tumbled 60% to $11.03 after the company said the FDA's Arthritis Advisory Committee that evaluated avacopan for the treatment of antineutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody-associated vasculitis gave a split verdict on whether the efficacy data support approval of avacopan. The committee voted 9-7 in favor of safety and 10-8 that the benefit-risk profile is adequate to support approval of avacopan at the proposed dose of 30 mg twice daily.

Shares of F-star Therapeutics, Inc. FSTX were down 16% to $7.43 after the company priced its 9.29 million shares common stock offering at $7 per share.

Orphazyme A/S ORPH was down, falling 31% to $5.88 after the company announced that the ORARIALS-01 pivotal trial of arimoclomol in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) did not meet its primary and secondary endpoints.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.1% to $64.76, while gold traded up 0.8% to $1,831.00.

Silver traded down 0.2% Friday to $27.525 while copper rose 2.9% to $4.7360.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 climbed 0.89%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.86% and the German DAX 30 gained 1.34%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.76%, French CAC 40 rose 0.45% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.48%.

UK’s construction PMI slipped to 61.6 in April from the previous month's level of 61.7. Spain's industrial production surged 12.4% year-over-year in March, while retail sales in Italy declined 0.1% in March. French industrial production increased 0.8% in March, while trade gap increased to EUR 6.1 billion in March from a revised EUR 5.1 billion in February.

Germany reported a current account surplus of EUR 30.2 billion in March versus a EUR 24.8 billion surplus in the year-ago month, while industrial production climbed 2.5% in March.

Economics

The nonfarm payroll number came in at +266,000, well worse than consensus economist expectations of +1 million. The unemployment rate increased by 0.1% to 6.1%.

US wholesale inventories rose 1.3% to $693.6 billion in March.

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs rose by 2 to 344 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.