Benzinga | Nov 20, 2020 02:33PM EST

Mid-Afternoon Market Update: Dow Drops Over 100 Points; Mesoblast Shares Spike Higher

Toward the end of trading Friday, the Dow traded down 0.46% to 29,346.95 while the NASDAQ rose 0.14% to 11,920.95. The S&P also fell, dropping 0.20% to 3,574.82.

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 11,718,860 cases with around 252,560 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 9,004,360 confirmed cases and 132,160 deaths, while Brazil reported over 5,981,760 COVID-19 cases with 168,060 deaths. In total, there were at least 57,011,970 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 1,362,420 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Utilities shares rose 0.5% on Friday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Sunnova Energy International Inc. (NYSE:NOVA), up 9%, and Azure Power Global Limited (NYSE:AZRE), up 5%.

In trading on Friday, financial shares fell 0.8%.

Top Headline

Foot Locker, Inc (NYSE:FL) reported better-than-expected results for its third quarter.

Foot Locker posted quarterly earnings of $1.21 per share, beating analysts' estimates of $0.62 per share. The company posted quarterly sales of $2.11 billion, surpassing expectations of $1.94 billion.





Equities Trading UP

Mesoblast Limited (NASDAQ:MESO) shares shot up 17% to $13.80 after the company reported Q1 results, and disclosed a license and collaboration deal with Novartis.

Shares of Dada Nexus Limited (NYSE:DADA) got a boost, shooting 29% to $43.35 after the company reported better-than-expected Q3 earnings

Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, Inc. (NYSE:NGVC) shares were also up, gaining 17% to $13.52 after the company reported Q4 results and also declared a $2 per share special dividend.



Equities Trading DOWN

Tantech Holdings Ltd (NASDAQ:TANH) shares tumbled 54% to $1.2650 after the company priced its 6.06 million shares common stock offering at $1.65 per share..

Shares of Nano Dimension Ltd - ADR (NASDAQ:NNDM) were down 22% to $4.5550 after the company priced a $100 million direct offering of 25 million shares at $4 per ADS.

Oragenics, Inc. (NYSE:OGEN) was down, falling 25% to $0.3969 after the company priced its 14.189 million shares common stock offering at $0.37 per share.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.5% to $41.96, while gold traded up 0.5% to $1,870.60.

Silver traded up 1.2% Friday to $24.34 while copper rose 2.6% to $3.2865.

Euro zone

European shares closed higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 rose 0.52%, the Spanish Ibex Index rose 0.6%, while Italy's FTSE MIB Index climbed 0.79%. Meanwhile, the German DAX 30 gained 0.39%, French CAC 40 rose 0.39% and London's FTSE 100 rose 0.27%.

Retail sales in the UK rose 1.2% in October, while German producer prices fell 0.7% year-over-year last month.

Economics

The total number of active U.S. oil rigs slipped by 5 to 231 rigs this week, Baker Hughes Inc reported.