Equity futures took the December jobs drop in stride as the market looks ahead to a stimulus led pick-up in the economy this year. In that context, the decline in December jobs due to the lockdowns further underpins projections for even greater fiscal spending this year with Democrats soon to be in charge of Washington. There was some intraday volatility amid conflicting signals about whether key Democratic Senator Joe Manchin would support increased government payouts, but a spokesperson said he is still open to considering new stimulus proposals and President-elect Joe Biden renewed his own call for more stimulus measures to be enacted, helping stocks recover in the afternoon.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., the jobs report undershot estimates with a 140,000 person December payroll decline. The wholesale trade report tracked estimates with a 0.2% November sales gain and flat wholesale inventories. In energy news, Baker Hughes reported that the U.S. rig count is up 9 from last week to 360 with oil rigs up 8 to 275.
In Capitol Hill news, Jeff Stein of the Washington Post reported that Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, said he would "absolutely not" support a round of $2,000 stimulus checks President-elect Joe Biden promised to approve if Georgia Democrats won their Senate races, which they did. Kayla Tausche of CNBC later reported, however, that Manchin's spokesperson said the senator is not outright opposed to new stimulus check proposals and will evaluate such proposals as they come in.
Data from the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering shows there are now 88.3M confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, including 21.6M in the U.S., and 1.9M deaths due to the disease, including 366,000 in the U.S.
TOP NEWS: Boeing (BA) announced last night that it entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice to resolve a criminal charge related to a conspiracy to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration's Aircraft Evaluation Group in connection with the FAA's evaluation of Boeing's 737 MAX airplane. Under the terms of the agreement, Boeing will pay the U.S. DOJ $2.5B to resolve such charges. The settlement amount is composed of a criminal monetary penalty of $243.6M, compensation payments to Boeing's 737 MAX airline customers of $1.77B, and the establishment of a $500M crash-victim beneficiaries fund to compensate the heirs, relatives, and legal beneficiaries of the 346 passengers who died in the Boeing 737 MAX crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302.
In COVID-19 news, Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX) announced that their COVID-19 vaccine elicited antibodies that neutralized mutation in an in vitro study conducted by Pfizer and the University of Texas Medical Branch. Meanwhile, Moderna (MRNA) announced that the U.K.'s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has approved its mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 for use under Regulation 174.
In earnings news, Micron (MU) shares were fractionally higher after the company reported better than expected first quarter earnings and revenue. Looking ahead, the company provided upbeat guidance for the second quarter, with the company adding on its quarterly call that it believes the NAND market can stabilize over the course of 2021.
Meanwhile, shares of Sarepta (SRPT) plunged 51% after the company announced top-line results from Part 1 of Study SRP-9001-102, an ongoing placebo-controlled clinical trial to evaluate the safety, efficacy and tolerability of a single dose of SRP-9001 in 41 patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The company said that while the study met its primary biological endpoint of micro-dystrophin protein expression, it did not achieve statistical significance on the primary functional endpoint of improvement in NSAA total score compared to placebo.
Additionally, the New York Times reported that federal prosecutors are slated to announce that Deutsche Bank (DB) broke violated anti-bribery laws as it attempt to win business in places such as China, and that the lender is expected to agree to pay over $100M to settled the charges and to enter into a deferred prosecution agreement in Brooklyn federal court on Friday. Reuters later reported that prosecutors have said that the company intends to pay over $87M to settle such claims.
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Chimerix (CMRX), which rose 69% after it acquired Oncoceutics for $78M. Also higher was Acacia (ACIA), which gained almost 10% after the company terminated its merger agreement with Cisco (CSCO). Bloomberg later reported that Cisco is suing Acacia to stop the company from breaking their merger pact.
Among the notable losers was Bionano Genomics (BNGO), which declined 6% after its 29M share spot secondary priced at $3.05. Also lower was Fulgent Genetics (FLGT), which fell 10.6% after Credit Suisse analyst Erin Wilson Wright downgraded the stock to Underperform from Neutral.
INDEXES: The Dow rose 56.84, or 0.18%, to 31,097.97, the Nasdaq gained 134.50, or 1.03%, to 13,201.98, and the S&P 500 advanced 20.89, or 0.55%, to 3,824.68.
Micron
-1.79 (-2.26%)
Boeing
-3.05 (-1.43%)
Pfizer
+0.115 (+0.31%)
BioNTech
+6.8 (+7.26%)
Moderna
-2.38 (-2.07%)
Sarepta
-86.355 (-51.13%)
Deutsche Bank
-0.015 (-0.13%)
Chimerix
+3.43 (+69.01%)
Acacia Communications
+6.87 (+9.48%)
Cisco
+0.08 (+0.18%)
Bionano Genomics
-0.32 (-6.43%)
Fulgent Genetics
-7.52 (-10.61%)