Oil Rises; Lowe's Shares Gain on Q2 Earnings Beat

U.S. stocks traded higher mid-session Wednesday, with the Nasdaq Composite gaining about 100 points.

The Dow traded up 0.39% to 53,549.17, while the Nasdaq fell 0.40% to 26,396.03. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining 0.50% to 7,729.89.

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares surged 3.9% on Wednesday.

In Wednesday's trading, information technology shares fell 1.2%.

Top Headline

Lowe's Companies Inc. shares rose about 5% on Wednesday after the home improvement retailer reported mixed second-quarter results for fiscal 2026 and lowered its full-year guidance below Wall Street expectations.

Adjusted earnings per share rose 1.6% to $4.40, beating the $4.33 estimate and surpassing the $4.22 analyst expectation. Net sales rose 8.3% to $25.96 billion, up from $23.96 billion in the same period last year, but below the $26.16 billion estimate.

Stocks Rising

Estee Lauder Companies Inc. shares surged 16% to $98.08 after the company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter financial results and issued FY27 sales guidance with a midpoint above expectations.

Tenon Medical Inc shares jumped sharply, soaring 114% to $11.68, after the company received a notice of allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a patent titled "Systems, Devices, and Methods for Stabilizing a Sacroiliac Joint."

Moderna Inc shares also rose, gaining 145% to $154.04, after the company and Merck announced that top-line results from the Phase III INTerpath-001 trial met the primary endpoint and a key secondary endpoint.

Stocks Down

WhiteFiber Inc shares fell 26% to $20.00 after the company announced the pricing of a $250 million convertible senior notes offering.

Datavault AI Inc shares fell 20% to $0.31 after the company reported worse-than-expected second-quarter financial results. The company announced it would acquire BankWyse.

CID HoldCo Inc fell, dropping 31% to $0.44 after the company announced additional Nasdaq listing deficiencies and a loan default.

Commodities

In commodity news, crude oil rose 1.8% to $86.48, while gold gained 2.4% to $4,525.50.

Silver rose 2% to $65.340 on Wednesday, while copper fell 0.4% to $6.4680.

Eurozone

European stocks were mixed today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 rose 0.1%, Spain's IBEX 35 fell 0.2%, London's FTSE 100 rose 0.2%, Germany's DAX fell 0.2%, and France's CAC 40 rose 0.1%.

Asia-Pacific Markets

Asia-Pacific markets were mostly lower on Wednesday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 falling 3.16%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gaining 0.09%, China's Shanghai Composite Index falling 2.40%, and India's BSE Sensex falling 0.42%.

Economic Data

Mortgage applications fell 0.4% in the second week of August.

U.S. crude oil inventories surged by 4.405 million barrels to 428.8 million barrels for the week ended August 14, marking the third consecutive weekly increase.