U.S. stocks traded higher this morning, with the Dow Jones index gaining more than 250 points on Friday.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded up 0.53% to 50,551.00 while the NASDAQ gained 0.72% to 26,481.49. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.64% to 7,493.32.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares jumped by 1.3% on Friday.

In trading on Friday, energy stocks fell by 0.1%.

Top Headline

Shares of BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings Inc (NYSE:BJ) fell around 7% on Friday after the company reported earnings for the first quarter.

The company posted quarterly earnings of $1.10 per share which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $1.03 per share. The company reported quarterly sales of $5.529 billion which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $5.396 billion.

Equities Trading UP
           

  • Picocela Inc – ADR (NASDAQ:PCLA) shares shot up 184% to $6.39.
  • Shares of Leifras Co Ltd (NASDAQ:LFS) got a boost, surging 138% to $4.46.
  • Akari Therapeutics PLC (NASDAQ:AKTX) shares were also up, gaining 90% to $9.76 after the company announced preclinical data demonstrating synergistic activity of AKTX-101 with KRAS inhibition in KRAS-mutated pancreatic cancer models

Equities Trading DOWN

  • Global Mofy AI Ltd (NASDAQ:GMM) shares dropped 67% to $0.32 after the company reported pricing of $8 million registered offering.
  • Shares of NervGen Pharma Corp (NASDAQ:NGEN) were down 44% to $2.07 after the company announced the pricing of its $60 million public offering of 24 million common shares and warrants at $2.50 each.
  • Aditxt Inc (NASDAQ:ADTX) was down, falling 37% to $0.77.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.6% to $96.96 while gold traded down 0.5% at $4,522.00.

Silver traded down 0.5% to $76.370 on Friday, while copper rose 0.9% to $6.3480.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 gained 0.8%, while Spain's IBEX 35 Index rose 0.6%. London's FTSE 100 rose 0.3%, Germany's DAX gained 1.2%, while France's CAC 40 climbed 0.7%.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed higher on Friday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 gaining 2.68%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gaining 0.86%, China's Shanghai Composite surging 0.87% and India's BSE Sensex rising 0.31%

Economics

The Michigan consumer sentiment index will be released today.

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