Global investors on Wednesday digested new data, policy statements, and earnings reports. In Europe, the MOEX Russia Index dipped 0.47%, the British FTSE rose 0.61%, the German DAX rose 1.09%, the French CAC rose 0.41%, and the broad STOXX 600 index rose 0.66%. In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) eked up 0.01% to 31,839.11, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) fell 2.04% to 10,970.99, and the broad S&P 500 (.INX) index dipped 0.74% to 3,830.6. The small cap Russell 2000 (.RUT) rose 0.46%, and the VIX volatility index fell 4.15%.
In the S&P 500, the biggest decliners were led by risk management firm Assurant (NYSE: AIZ), whose shares plunged 10.47% after Truist Financial (NASDAQ: TFC) cut its price target. The other biggest decliners were technology giant Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL), down 5.55%, aerospace firm Boeing (NYSE: BA), down 8.77%, data storage firm Seagate (NASDAQ: STX), down 7.95%, and adhesive materials firm Avery Dennison (NYSE: AVY), down 7.78%. The biggest gainers were led by hospital and healthcare services firm Universal Health Services (NYSE: UHS), whose shares soared 13.13% after reporting earnings and revenue that beat estimates. The other biggest gainers were pest control firm Rollins (NYSE: ROL), up 10.04%, energy technology firm Enphase Energy (NASDAQ: ENPH), up 9.89%, real estate analytics firm CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP), up 7.44%, and mining firm Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX), up 5.27%.
In the Nasdaq, shares of cloud software firm Datadog (NASDAQ: DDOG) fell 8.17% and technology giant Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) fell 7.72%, while Chinese agriculture technology firm Pinduoduo (NASDAQ: PDD) soared 11.70% and Chinese ecommerce firm JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) jumped 8.66%. Among COVID stocks, Apellis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: APLS) fell 2.36%, while biopharmaceutical firm Emergent Biosolutions (NYSE: EBS) jumped 9.30%. In fixed income markets, the yields on Treasury bonds largely edged down.
As of press time, in commodities markets, the price of international Brent crude oil futures rose 2.53%, and US West Texas Intermediate crude climbed 3.28%. The price of natural gas futures rose 1.62%. The price of gold futures rose 0.59%, silver rose 0.78%, copper jumped 4.24%, platinum jumped 4.22%, copper climbed 2.41%, wheat futures rose 0.9%, sugar futures fell 1.38%, coffee fell 3.31%, rough rice slipped 0.97%, and feeder cattle futures rose 0.67%. In crypto asset markets, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) rose 3.00%, Ether (ETH) jumped 5.59%, Binance Coin (BNB) rose 1.28%, XRP rose 1.25%, and Cardano (ADA) dipped 0.39%.