U.S. stocks traded higher this morning, with the Dow Jones gaining around 200 points on Friday.

The Dow traded up 0.50% to 40,916.65 while the NASDAQ rose 0.92% to 17,780.96. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.66% to 5,607.44.

Leading and Lagging Sectors
Information technology shares climbed by 1.1% on Friday.

In trading on Friday, consumer staples shares rose by just 0.1%.

Top Headline

Ross Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:ROST) posted stronger-than-expected earnings for its second quarter, after the closing bell on Thursday.

The company said it sees third-quarter earnings of between $1.35 and $1.41 per share, versus the $1.38 per share estimate, and earnings of between $1.60 and $1.67 per share for the fourth quarter.

Equities Trading UP

• Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE:SQNS) shares shot up 155% to $1.3899 after the company reported a year-over-year increase in preliminary second-quarter revenue results.
• Shares of Portage Biotech Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTG) got a boost, surging 154% to $6.87.
• Momentus Inc. (NASDAQ:MNTS) shares were also up, gaining 63% to $0.9280.

Equities Trading DOWN

• U-BX Technology Ltd. (NASDAQ:UBXG) shares dropped 78% to $6.87. Traders may be responding to unconfirmed comments on social media apps amid ongoing heavy option activity.
• Shares of Farmmi, Inc. (NASDAQ:FAMI) were down 64% to $0.2098 after the company announced the pricing of $1 million registered direct offering.
• SRIVARU Holding Limited (NASDAQ:SVMH) was down, falling 25% to $0.1180. SRIVARU recently announced the formal launch of the PRANA 2.0 electric motorcycle at a major event in Chennai, India.

Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 1.8% to $74.30 while gold traded up 0.7% at $2,535.20.

Silver traded up 0.8% to $29.275 on Friday, while copper rose 0.4% to $4.1635.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 gained 0.2%, Germany's DAX rose 0.5% and France's CAC 40 gained 0.4%. Spain's IBEX 35 Index rose 0.5%, while London's FTSE 100 rose 0.3%.

Median expectations for inflation over the next 12 months for the Eurozone came in unchanged at 2.8% for the third month in a row. The manufacturing climate indicator in France climbed to 98.8 in August from 95.4 in July.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly higher on Friday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 gaining 0.40%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index falling 0.16%, China's Shanghai Composite Index rising 0.20% and India's BSE Sensex rising 0.04%.

The annual inflation rate in Japan came in at 2.8% in July, holding steady for the third month in a row.

Economics

U.S. building permits declined by 3.3% to an annual rate of 1.406 million in July.

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