Early Look

Thursday, December 26, 2024

After surging on Monday and Tuesday, finishing at the highs both sessions, U.S. futures are looking lower as trading resumed after the Christmas holiday with investors looking to initial jobless claims data and a government bond auction later Thursday. Treasury yields are higher with the 10-yr at 4.62%, the dollar is flat, Bitcoin is down -2% to $95,800 and gold edges higher. In Asian markets, The Nikkei Index advanced 437 points to 39,566, the Shanghai Index gained 4 points to 3,398, and the Hang Seng Index was closed. In Europe, the German DAX, Cac 40 and FTSE 100 were all closed for holiday. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq wrapped up Tuesday’s abbreviated session with a third straight session of gains lifted by mega cap and growth stocks, the leaders all year including Apple, Tesla, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Microsoft and Meta Platforms which have accounted for more than half of the S&P 500’s 28.4% total return this year, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. Meanwhile, the unofficial start to the so called “Santa Claus” rally Tuesday was solid with a 1% advance. The S&P 500 has gained an average of 1.3% in the last five trading days of December and the first two days of January since 1969, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 390.08 points, or 0.91%, to 43,297.03.
• The Nasdaq Composite surged 266.24 points, or 1.35%, to 20,031.13.
• The Russell 2000 Index advanced 22.42 points, or 1.00% to 2,259.85.

• 8:30 AM ET                  Weekly Jobless Claims…est. 224K
• 8:30 AM ET                  Continuing Claims…est. 1.88M
• 10:30 AM ET                Weekly EIA Natural Gas Inventory Data
• 11:00 AM ET                Weekly EIA Crude Oil Inventory data
• 1:00 PM ET U.S. Treasury to sell $44B in 7-year notes

• The bull-bear spread in the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) weekly survey was 3.7 vs 9.3 last week. Bulls fall to 37.8% from 40.7%, Neutrals rise to 28% from 27.9%, Bears rise to 34.1% from 31.4%.

• Taiwan’s anti-trust regulator rejected Uber Technologies Inc.’s (UBER) plan to buy Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business on the island for $950 million, arguing it would decrease competition in the fast-growing food-delivery industry.
• Private equity firms KKR (KKR) and Bain Capital each offered more than $5 billion in first-round bids for the non-core assets of Japan’s Seven & i Holdings, according to people familiar with the matter – Reuters reported. https://tinyurl.com/mv2tnnh
• An Embraer (ERJ) passenger jet crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 people, after diverting from an area of Russia that Moscow has recently defended against Ukrainian drone attacks.