What Did the Stock Market Do Today? 3 Big Stories to Catch Up On.

Advertisement

Monday trading may be over, but make sure you are all caught up and ready for the week. To start, what did the stock market do today? And what else should be on your radar?

Street sign for Wall Street pictured in front of several American flags representing american stocks

Source: Shutterstock

  • The S&P 500 closed higher by 0.18%
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 0.18%
  • The Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 0.87%

So what else did the stock market do today? Here are the top three stories.

What Did the Stock Market Do Today? Tesla Beat Its Record.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) delivered, reporting record net income of $438 million in the first quarter. The leading electric vehicle maker also reported that its revenue of $10.39 billion was up 74% year-over-year. According to CNBC, the report easily beat analyst estimates.

  • Earnings per share of 93 cents came in higher than expectations for 79 cents.
  • Revenue of $10.39 billion beat out expectations for $10.29 billion.

Two immediate takeaways for investors is exactly where this impressive quarter came from.

As the company shared in its release, one source of its record-setting performance was sales of regulatory credits. In fact, these sales totaled $518 million in the quarter. Energy storage and energy generation revenues also grew rapidly, and vehicle unit sales grew more than 100% year-over-year. Plus, while many automakers faced a crunch from the chip shortage, CEO Elon Musk said Tesla was able to push through. How? The company said it developed firmware for chips from new suppliers and made a series of quick pivots.

What does Wall Street think? A new note from Wedbush analyst Dan Ives calls it a “solid quarter” for Tesla and says the focus will now be on 2021 vehicle deliveries. Ives has an “outperform” rating on TSLA stock and a price target of $1,000.

MindMed Promises to Bring the Next Shroom Boom

Tomorrow, MindMed (OTCMKTS:MMEDF) gets a new lease on life.

This is because the New York-based company will uplist on the Nasdaq Exchange and start trading as MNMD stock. Currently, U.S. investors only have access to MindMed through the over-the-counter markets, where it trades as MMEDF stock. Investors in Germany and Canada can also trade it on the NEO Exchange.

Why does this matter? On one level, the Nasdaq uplisting is a big vote of confidence in relatively little-known MindMed. Shares currently trade for less than $5, and despite the exciting nature of its business, many investors may not know about what MindMed does. On the other hand, the uplisting is not just an endorsement of MindMed, but of psychedelic drugs.

That is because MindMed wants to use psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, DMT and 18-MC to treat disease. Essentially, the company wants to use psychedelic-inspired and psychedelic-derived treatments for things like the root cause of addiction. Another treatment is focusing on the potential benefits of microdosing LSD and psilocybin as an alternate to ADHD medications like Adderall.

As InvestorPlace analyst Luke Lango puts it, a shroom boom is coming. The earlier IPO of Compass Pathways (NASDAQ:CMPS) and the coming IPO of ATAI Life Sciences proves that. The MindMed uplisting proves that. And gains in recent days in even smaller players like Champignon Brands (OTCMKTS:SHRMF) also prove that. Lango recommends that investors buy CMPS stock now to benefit from the psychedelics megatrend.

Read more about the MNMD stock uplisting here.

Soaring Crop Prices Trigger Inflation Fears

Crop prices just hit highs not seen in nearly eight years, and investors are taking note.

Driving the surge in prices is a variety of factors, as Bloomberg reports. Bad weather, such as heavy rain in Argentina and dryness in Canada, France and the U.S. is hurting wheat, corn, and soy harvests. The so-called American Farm Belt is also reeling, with reports of a drought coming this summer. Making matters worse, according to the report, is news that China is increasing its imports of agriculture goods to all-time-high levels. All factors combined, Farm Futures analyst Jacqueline Holland says a demand ration may be coming.

Importantly, this rally in crop prices is having two immediately clear impacts, as Bloomberg reports. The first is that palladium and copper prices are rallying alongside crops, because some investors are now generally pricing in a surge of industrial demand. The second is that food inflation fears are climbing.

The short story is that staple crops like wheat, soy and corn have a huge impact on consumer prices. When these crops become more expensive, consumers feel the pinch buying bread, meat, soda and so much more.

So what should you do now? Although the news is alarming, Bloomberg also reports that there is reason to believe this situation could calm down in the coming months. It also has certain stocks like Yield10 Bioscience (NASDAQ:YTEN), Arcadia Biosciences (NASDAQ:RKDA) and Origin Agritech (NASDAQ:SEED) on watch.

On the date of publication, Sarah Smith did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. 

Sarah Smith is a Web Content Producer with InvestorPlace.com.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2021/04/what-did-the-stock-market-do-today-3-big-stories-tesla-stock-mnmd-stock-mmedf-stock/.

©2024 InvestorPlace Media, LLC