U.S. stocks head modestly lower Wednesday afternoon, but stocks remain within striking distance of record closing highs, aided by gains in large-cap technology.
Gold futures settled at their highest level since June on Wednesday, rebounding from two consecutive session declines, with surging inflation continuing to provide support for prices of the precious metal. U.S. home builders started construction on homes at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.52 million in October, down 0.7% from the previous month, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday. The decline was "partially blamed on rising inflation for materials into the construction of houses," said Jeff Wright, chief investment officer at Wolfpack Capital. "Inflation is all around us and gold is benefitting." December gold rose $16.10, or 0.9%, to settle at $1,870.20 an ounce. That was the highest most-active contract finish since June 11, FactSet data show.
Chobani Inc. filed Wednesday for an initial public offering, but the New York-based yogurt company has not yet set any terms. The company has applied to have its stock listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "CHO." The company has not yet determined how many shares it will sell in the IPO, an expected range for the IPO pricing, or how many shares there will be outstanding after the IPO. There were 12 underwriters listed, led by Goldman Sachs and BofA Securities. The company has recorded a net loss of $24.0 million on revenue of $1.21 billion during the nine months ended Sept. 25, after a loss of $21.4 million on revenue of $1.07 billion in the same period a year ago. The company, founded in 2005, is run by Founder and Chief Executive Hamdi Ulukaya. The company is looking to go public at a time that the Renaissance IPO ETF has rallied 8.5% over the past three months while the S&P 500 has gained 5.5%.
Sono Group N.V. received an ovation on its Wall Street debut, as the Germany-based solar electric vehicle company's stock opened 33.7% above its initial public offering price and kept rising, more than doubling at one point. The company said overnight that its IPO priced at $15.00 per share, in the middle of the expected range of between $14 and $16 a share. The company raised $150.0 million as it sold 10.0 million shares in the IPO. With 69.08 million shares outstanding after the IPO, the pricing valued the company at $1.04 billion. The stock's first trade on the Nasdaq, under the ticker symbol "SEV," was at $20.06 at 10:26 a.m. Eastern for about 642,700 shares. The rallied as much as 115.6% to an intraday high of $32.34 before paring gains to trade up 78.7% at $26.80, which boosted Sono's market value to $1.85 billion. Berenberg and Craig-Hallum were the underwriters of the IPO. The company recorded a loss of EUR25.8 million ($29.2 million) on no revenue during the six months ended June 30, after a loss of EUR9.8 million on no revenue in the same period a year ago. The company's upbeat debut comes on a day that the Renaissance IPO ETF slid 1.4% while the S&P 500 eased 0.2%.