US stocks rebounded yesterday as investors sought to buy the dip. European and Asian stocks were also up.
Fed Chair Powell’s testimony was vague and gave no firm commitment to a March rate rise.
Today’s market focus will be on US inflation as CPI data is released this morning. The consensus looks for CPI to rise 7.0% year-over-year in December and 0.4% month-over-month.
Energy price spikes in Europe continue to cause concern, and COVID continues to rampage, with US hospitalizations now above 140k.
Oil up. Gold firmer. Industrial metals mixed. Main cryptocurrencies higher.
| NASDAQ | S&P500 | Bitcoin |
|---|---|---|
| 15,153.45 (+1.41%) | 4,713.07 (+0.92%) | 42,792.54 (+2.39%) |
Here are some trending stocks:
Accolade (NASDAQ: ACCD) shares rose over 27% yesterday on impressive Q3 earnings and revenue beat. It raised 2022 guidance and projects 2023 revenue growth.
Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN) shares rose 17% as it tipped Q4 revenue guidance to beat consensus. It also announced new partnerships with Agendia and Boehringer Ingelheim.
Lithium Americas (NYSE: LAC) has been upgraded to overweight at Piper Sandler and to buy from hold at Deutsche Bank. Tightening fundamentals in lithium markets contributed to these decisions. LAC shares were up nearly 14%.
Shake Shack (NYSE: SHAK) shares rose 13% as it guided revenue above consensus, but COVID weighs on staffing.
Abercrombie and Fitch (NYSE: ANF) lowered its Q4 net sales outlook due to COVID impacts but indicated post-holiday sales are accelerating.
Urban Outfitters (NASDAQ: URBN) reported digital sales offset negative retail store sales, and total net sales for two months ended 31-Dec were up 14.6% from 2019 levels.
Aptiv (NYSE: APTV) declared its $4.3bn acquisition of Wind River, a global software leader in serving mission-critical intelligent systems.
Volta Industries (NYSE: VOLT) is due to report earnings.
Domino's Pizza (NYSE: DPZ) announced it expects unprecedented food-cost increases in 2022. It plans to modify some national promotions to address rising costs.
Today shareholders in Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation II (NASDAQ: DCRN) will vote whether to take fast charger specialist Tritium public via SPAC. This should bring $400m to Tritium who says it is well-positioned to benefit from long-term growth in the global passenger EV market. Palantir Technologies (NYSE: PLTR) is an early PIPE investor in Tritium.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) was downgraded to sell from neutral at UBS due to near-term risk to Q4 operating estimates, its ability to compete in cloud software, lower EPS estimates and elevated valuation. Meanwhile, IBM has acquired Australian software provider Envizi for an undisclosed sum. Envizi is a data and analytics software provider for environmental performance management. It serves leading brands such as Microsoft, Qantas, CBRE, Uber, abrdn and Celestica.
ARK Invest held its monthly webinar yesterday, and Cathie Wood reiterated her belief that deflation, rather than inflation, will affect the US economy in the coming year. She believes Zoom (NASDAQ: ZM) and Teladoc (NYSE: TDOC) will continue to grow. Meanwhile, many analysts and investors believe ARK’s portfolio is heading for serious trouble.
Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) plans to sell a 27K acre gas property in the Appalachian basin.
Today’s IPOs include TPG Partners with the ticker TPG, FGI Industries with the ticker FGI and Justworks with the ticker JW. All will launch on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
In Asia:
The HSR filing (part of the Premerger Notification and the Merger Review Process) for AMD’s (NASDAQ: AMD) planned $35bn all-stock acquisition of Xilinx (NASDAQ: XLNX) expires today. It awaits approval from Chinese antitrust authorities, but if approval does not come, a new HSR filing will have to be made.
JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) have rallied more than 20% from their recent lows.
The ChiNext Index, China’s tech-heavy and liquidity-sensitive gauge, rose for the first time this year.
In cryptocurrency news:
Today most cryptos are in the green.
Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather are being sued over a 'pump and dump' crypto scam involving EthereumMax tokens.
Reese Witherspoon is being called out for advertising crypto.
Binance founder and CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao has joined the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with an estimated net worth of at least $133bn.
Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities has received a $1.15bn investment from venture-capital firms Sequoia Capital and Paradigm, valuing it around $22bn. Paradigm is focused on making Web3 and cryptocurrency-related investments. Therefore some believe Citadel will be expanding into cryptocurrencies.
