Dow Jumps Over 200 Points; PepsiCo Cuts Earnings Outlook

U.S. stocks traded higher this morning, with the Dow Jones index gaining more than 200 points on Thursday.

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.57% to 39,832.66 while the NASDAQ gained 1.58% to 16,974.28. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 1.14% to 5,437.24.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares jumped by 2.2% on Thursday.

In trading on Thursday, consumer staples fell by 1.1%.

Top Headline

PepsiCo, Inc. PEP reported mixed first-quarter results and issued FY25 EPS guidance below estimates.

The food and beverage giant clocked a first-quarter FY25 sales decline of 1.8% year-on-year to $17.92 billion, beating the analyst consensus estimate of $17.77 billion. Adjusted EPS of $1.48 missed the consensus estimate of $1.49.

PepsiCo cut its adjusted EPS outlook to $7.92, much lower than the estimate of $8.27 and a low-single-digit increase in organic revenue. PepsiCo sees a core annual effective tax rate of approximately 20%.

Equities Trading UP
                       

• Cantor Equity Partners, Inc. CEP shares shot up 86% to $30.74.
• Shares of Xcel Brands, Inc. XELBgot a boost, surging 49% to $3.39.
• CERo Therapeutics Holdings, Inc. CERO shares were also up, gaining 41% to $1.1303 after the company announced the key clinical trial site location for its Phase 1 CER-1236 trial.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Greenlane Holdings, Inc. GNLN shares dropped 93% to $0.0169.
• Shares of NuCana plc NCNA were down 28% to $0.6229.
• Jiuzi Holdings, Inc. JZXN was down, falling 29% to $5.24.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.5% to $62.55 while gold traded up 1.4% at $3,340.00.

Silver traded down 0.6% to $33.34 on Thursday, while copper fell 0.1% to $4.8425.

Euro zone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.2%, Germany’s DAX 40 gained 0.2% and France’s CAC 40 gained 0.1%. Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 0.5%, while London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.1%.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 surging 0.49%, China’s Shanghai Composite gaining 0.03%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 0.74% and India’s BSE Sensex falling 0.39%.

Economics

• U.S. natural-gas stocks increased 88 billion cubic feet during the week ending April 18, compared to market estimates of 65 bcf gain.
• U.S. existing home sales fell by 5.6% from the previous month to an annualized rate of 4.02 million units in March.
• The Chicago Fed National Activity Index declined to -0.03 in March compared to a reading of +0.24 in February.
• U.S. initial jobless claims climbed by 6,000 from the previous week to 222,000 during the third week of April.
• U.S. durable goods orders gained by 9.2% month-over-month to $315.7 billion in March.

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