Benzinga | Oct 28, 2021 12:16PM EDT

Mid-Day Market Update: Nasdaq Rises Over 1%; Rafael Holdings Shares Slide

Midway through trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.40% to 35,631.75 while the NASDAQ rose 1.09% to 15,401.19. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.74% to 4,585.17.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 46,597,000 cases with around 761,850 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 34,231,800 cases and 456,410 deaths, while Brazil reported over 21,766,160 COVID-19 cases with 606,720 deaths. In total, there were at least 245,904,790 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,990,070 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Consumer discretionary shares gained by 1.3% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Lucid Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:LCID), up 26% and Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSTK) up 23%.

In trading on Thursday, energy shares fell by 0.2%.

Top Headline

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) reported better-than-expected earnings for its third quarter.

Caterpillar reported quarterly adjusted earnings of $2.66 per share, exceeding analysts' estimates of $2.20 per share. The company's sales came in at $12.40 billion, versus expectations of $12.48 billion.

Equities Trading UP

HCW Biologics Inc. (NASDAQ:HCWB) shares shot up 97% to $5.76 after the company announced that it has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to proceed to evaluate its lead drug candidate, HCW9218, in a first-in-human Phase 1b clinical trial in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.

Shares of Digital Brands Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:DBGI) got a boost, shooting 51% to $4.5870 after the company announced it launched on Amazon Prime and also launched an affiliate program.

InflaRx N.V. (NASDAQ:IFRX) shares were also up, gaining 75% to $4.9950. Raymond James upgraded InflaRx from Outperform to Strong Buy and announced a $14 price target.

Check out these big movers of the day

Equities Trading DOWN

Rafael Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:RFL) shares tumbled 80% to $6.01. Rafael Holdings' Rafael Pharmaceuticals Inc announced that the AVENGER 500 Phase 3 trial for CPI-613 (devimistat) did not meet its primary endpoint of significant improvement in overall survival in pancreatic cancer patients.

Shares of CohBar, Inc. (NASDAQ:CWBR) were down 35% to $0.5873 after the company reported pricing of $15.0 million public offering of common stock and warrants.

Brickell Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ:BBI) was down, falling 26% to $0.3988 after the company priced its underwritten public offering of 26,316,000 shares of its common stock at $0.38 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.7% to $82.12, while gold traded up 0.4% to $1,805.60.

Silver traded up 0.1% Thursday to $24.205 while copper rose 1.2% to $4.4405.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 rose 0.24%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.6% and the German DAX 30 declined 0.06%. Meanwhile, the London's FTSE 100 fell 0.05%, French CAC 40 rose 0.75% and Italy's FTSE MIB gained 0.31%.

Manufacturing confidence in Italy rose to 114.9 in October from a revised 113.2 in September, while consumer confidence fell to 118.4 from 119.6. UK car production dipped 41.5% year-over-year to 67,149 in September. Spain's annual inflation rate surged to 5.5% in October from 4.0% a month ago, while unemployment rate declined to 14.57% in the third quarter from 15.26%. The unemployment rate in Germany came in unchanged at 3.4% in September.

Economics

The US economy expanded an annualized rate of 2% on quarter in the third quarter.

US initial jobless claims dropped to a fresh 19-month low of 281,000 in the week ending October 23rd.

The pending home sales index fell 2.3% for September.

US natural gas supplies climbed 87 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.

The Kansas City Fed's manufacturing production index climbed to 25 in October from 10 in the earlier month.

The Treasury will auction 7-year notes at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Check out the full economic calendar here