Stocks opened in quiet fashion and remained that way throughout the session. Investors were looking to the holiday weekend and generally ignored the multitude of economic data released in the morning. The durable goods orders, personal income and spending and consumer confidence readings were all generally in line with expectations, though the data on new home sales was strong. President Trump signed the tax reform bill into law and predicted more bipartisan work in 2018. The afternoon was quiet as the news flow slowed and the volume dried up heading into the close. ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., durable goods orders rebounded 1.3% in November, though that was shy of expectations for a 2% bounceback. Personal income rose 0.3% in November, which was a tick below the consensus forecast, with spending up 0.6%, a tick above expectations. The final December print from the University of Michigan survey showed consumer sentiment fell to 95.9, down from the 96.8 December preliminary read and November's 98.5 reading. New home sales climbed 17.5% to a 733,000 rate in November, marking the strongest rate since July 2007. In energy news, Baker Hughes reported that the U.S. Rig Count is up 1 rig from last week to 931. Meanwhile, after the GOP tax bill was passed by the House and the Senate, President Trump signed it into law today. COMPANY NEWS: Shares of Nike (NKE) slipped 2.3% despite the sneaker giant's report of better than expected quarterly profits last night. However, Nike's earnings outlook for Q3 came in 25% below consensus expectations and the company was said to have pushed further out its expectations for inflections in sales and gross margins in the "essential" North American market... Google parent Alphabet (GOOG) announced last night that Eric Schmidt is stepping down as executive chairman. Schmidt, who joined Google in 2001 and was named its executive chairman in 2011, will become a technical advisor to the company while continuing to serve on its board... Coinbase, one of the largest bitcoin marketplaces in the U.S., said that buying and selling had been temporarily disabled amid a price rout in cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin's price was quoted to be just over $14,000 near the 4 pm ET close of the stock market, according to CoinDesk. While down about 9% on a daily level at that price, bitcoin had been down to below $13,000 earlier in the day after the cryptocurrency had flirted with the $20K level not long ago... Shares of XPO Logistics (XPO) surged 14.4% after Recode reported that Home Depot (HD) has held internal talks about a potential bid to acquire XPO, at least in part to keep the logistics company out of the hands of Amazon (AMZN), which is also believed to have weighed buying it. The news came after home security camera maker Blink announced that it has been acquired by Amazon. MAJOR MOVERS: Among the notable gainers was Ignyta (RXDX), which jumped 72.7% after announcing it will be bought by Roche (RHHBY) for $27 per share. Also higher was La Jolla Pharmaceutical (LJPC), which gained 11.1% after the FDA granted earlier than expected approval of Giapreza for increasing blood pressure in association with the treatment of septic or distributive shock. Among the noteworthy losers was Celgene (CELG), which dropped 1.4% after reporting that the Revlimid plus rituximab treatment arm of the RELEVANCE study did not achieve superiority in its co-primary endpoints. Also lower were shares of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which slid 7.3% after chairman and CEO Vince McMahon sold stock amid speculation that he could be restarting the XFL. INDEXES: The Dow fell 28.23, or 0.11%, to 24,754.06, the Nasdaq lost 5.40, or 0.08%, to 6,959.96, and the S&P 500 declined 1.23, or 0.05%, to 2,683.34.
