U.S. equities markets are getting pasted Friday on worries that a new strain of coronavirus has been found in South Africa. All 11 sectors are trading lower with energy dropping the most, down more than 4%. Crude oil traded below $71, down about 10% for the day, stoked by fears that the global economy is setting up for another skid. Bitcoin fell by as much as 10% but has recovered somewhat to trade down about 7.5% at $54,432 in the noon hour. Gold traded up 0.8% at near $1,800 an ounce after jumping to $1,816 early this morning. And demand for government debt has surged, sending yields on 10-year Treasuries down by nearly 14 basis points to 1.50%.
Meme stocks are no exception. We noted in our morning report today that Ocugen Inc. (NASDAQ: OCGN) was sinking following an FDA hold on a new drug application from the company. The drop has been cut in half from its earlier level, but the stock is still down about 9%.
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The second-worst performing sector today is financial stocks and Bakkt Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BKKT) is taking a sharp dip as a result. The company had no specific news and trading in the shares has been very light.
Chinese ride-sharing giant DiDi Global Inc. (NYSE: DIDI) traded down Friday after reports that the government asked that the company drop its U.S. listing. Didi has lost about 45% of its value since its June IPO, largely due to a stream of government investigations and a general crackdown on the country’s tech giants. Exactly how such a delisting would happen remains an open question.
Shares of Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) traded down nearly 3% in the noon hour Friday after CEO Elon Musk confirmed in a tweet that Tesla would forego a €1.1 billion subsidy for its planned battery plant in Germany:
It has always been Tesla’s view that all subsidies should be eliminated, but that must include the massive subsidies for oil & gas.
For some reason, governments don’t want to do that …
Due to Friday’s early closing time (1:00 p.m. ET), we’re reporting closing prices today.
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Ocugen stock traded down more than 9% at $6.45 in a 52-week range of $0.28 to $18.77. Average daily trading volume is around 32.2 million shares and nearly 36 million were traded today.
Shares of Didi closed down about 2.6% at $7.90 in a 52-week range of $7.16 to $18.01. Nearly 30 million shares were traded Friday compared to the daily average of around 18.9 million.
Bakkt closed down 9.6% at $15.62 in a 52-week range of $8.00 to $50.80. Trading volume was just 3.1 million shares compared to the daily average of 23.9 million.
Shares of Tesla closed down about 3.1% at $1,081.92 in a 52-week range of $539.49 to $1,243.49. Trading volume was less than half the daily average of 24.8 million shares.
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