Dow Falls 200 Points; Jobless Claims Drop To 4-Month Low

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones dropping around 200 points on Thursday.

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.62% to 33,090.82 while the NASDAQ fell 0.70% to 10,880.01. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.64% to 3,903.72.
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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Real estate shares rose by 0.5% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included The Real Brokerage Inc. (NASDAQ:REAX), up 6%, and KE Holdings Inc. (NYSE:BEKE), up 2%.
• In trading on Thursday, financials shares dipped by 1.4%.

Top Headline

US initial jobless claims dropped by 15,000 from the prior week to 190,000 in the week ending January 14, the lowest in four months. However, analysts were expecting claims to reach 214,000.

Equities Trading UP

• Gorilla Technology Group Inc. (NASDAQ:GRRR) shares shot up 64% to $9.15. - Gorilla Technology Group completed the acquisition of the tech stack of SeeQuestor Limited.
• Shares of RenovoRx, Inc. (NASDAQ:RNXT) got a boost, shooting 14% to $4.16. RenovoRx, on Wednesday, announced initial results from a pharmacokinetic (PK) substudy within the phase 3 un-blinded randomized control TIGeR-PaC clinical trial to be presented at the 2023 ASCO Gastrointestinal (ASCO GI) Cancers Symposium this week.
• Concert Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:CNCE) shares were also up, gaining 20% to $8.27 after Sun Pharma announced it will acquire the company.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Surmodics, Inc. (NASDAQ:SRDX) shares tumbled 24% to $28.30 after the company received a letter from the FDA related to its premarket approval (PMA) application for the SurVeil drug-coated balloon (DCB). In the letter, the FDA indicated that the application is not currently approvable while providing specific guidance on a path forward..
• Shares of Olink Holding AB (NASDAQ:OLK) were down 17% to $19.98 after the company announced pricing of a public offering of American Depository Shares.
• Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:DCPH) was down, falling 14% to $17.69 after the company announced a $125 million proposed public offering of common stock.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.5% to $79.87 while gold traded up 0.6% at $1,917.80.

Silver traded up 0.1% to $23.66 on Thursday while copper fell 0.2% to $4.2255.

Stocks of crude oil in the US rose by 7.615 million barrels in the latest week, the American Petroleum Institute said Wednesday.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 dropped 1.4%, London’s FTSE 100 fell 1% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1.8%. The German DAX declined 1.5% French CAC 40 dropped 1.7% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 1.4%.

The current account surplus in the Eurozone narrowed to EUR 13.4 billion in November compared to EUR 13.8 billion in the year-ago month. Spanish trade deficit narrowed to EUR 3.31 billion in November from EUR 4.21 billion in the year-ago month.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly lower on Thursday, with the Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 0.12%, and China’s Shanghai Composite Index rising 0.49%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.44%.

Japan recorded a trade deficit of JPY 1,448.5 billion in December, wider from JPY 603.1 billion in the year-ago period. Hong Kong’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% during the three months ending December 2022, versus 3.7% in the prior September-November period. The unemployment rate in Australia came in steady at 3.5% in December.

Economics

• US initial jobless claims dropped by 15,000 from the prior week to 190,000 in the week ending January 14, the lowest in four months. However, analysts were expecting claims to reach 214,000.

• Housing starts in the US fell 1.4% to an annualized rate of 1.382 million in December.

• Building permits declined 1.6% from a month ago to an annual rate of 1.33 million in December.

• The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index increased to -8.9 in January versus a revised reading of -13.7 in the previous month.

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COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 103,701,160 cases with around 1,127,050 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,681,880 cases and 530,720 deaths, while France reported over 39,467,280 COVID-19 cases with 163,640 deaths. In total, there were at least 672,336,840 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,736,630 deaths.