From Briefing.com: 4:05 pm : 'Twas two nights before Christmas, when all through the trading house.
Not a sentient creature was stirring about, no one clicking their mouse;
A few algorithms ran up and down,
But the day's action was decidedly rangebound;
Biotechnology lifted the health care sector (+0.8%) and energy (-0.2%) retreated despite an uptick in crude (+0.2%; $53.03/bbl),
But the S&P 500 (+0.1%) settled just above its flat line, because to do otherwise on this day would just be rude;
The daytraders were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of Dow 20,000 danced in their heads;
The industrial sector (+0.1%) eked out a slim gain,
Even though the President-elect took to Twitter again;
He took aim at the high cost of the F-35 fighter jet,
And his comments made some Lockheed Martin (LMT 249.54, -3.26) shareholders sweat;
Shares of LMT surrendered just over a percent, But that did not stop the industrial sector from registering a weekly ascent (+0.6%);
Credit Suisse (CS 14.85, -0.08) and Deutsche Bank (DB 18.63, +0.09) agreed to settle with a U.S. regulator,
But the financial sector (+0.1%) spent the entire day near its equator;
Just like stocks, the Treasury market was also range-bound,
Though the 10-yr note did pick up some ground (-1 bp to 2.54%);
A couple of datapoints crossed the wires today,
But neither New Home Sales (592,000; Briefing.com consensus 573,000) nor Michigan Sentiment (98.2; Briefing.com consensus 98.2) received much play;
Bond and equity markets will be closed on Monday,
Which should allow everyone to really enjoy the Christmas Sunday.
Of course other holidays will begin this weekend in parallel,
And with that in mind, the staff at Briefing.com would like to wish you all well.
Russell 2000 +20.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +14.4% YTD
S&P 500 +10.8% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +9.1%
DJ30 +15.06 NASDAQ +15.27 SP500 +2.83 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1973/1.05 bln/901 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1733/616.7 mln/1172
3:30 pm :
Natural gas saw a notable rally to end the week +8%, compared to last Friday's closing price
Jan 2017 natural gas closed $0.13 higher (+3.7%) at $3.67/MMBtu
Crude oil futures ended pit trading nearly flat after the release of rig count data
Feb 2017 crude oil futures rose about $0.01 (+0.1%) around $52.98/barrel
Baker Hughes total U.S. rig count increased by 16 to 653 rigs following last week's increase of 13 rigs.
Of that total, 13 rigs added this week were oil rigs. The total number of oil rigs has increased to 523 rigs.
This marks the 8th consecutive week of oil rig count additions.
In precious metals, gold extended yesterday's gains and ended near a session high as the dollar index drifted modestly lower
Feb 2017 gold ended today's session up $3.20 (+0.3%) to $1133.9/oz
Mar 2017 silver closed today's session flat at $15.88/oz
The dollar index was trading -0.1% around the 103.02
Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, -0.1% around the 86.29
It was a quietsession for the equity markets ahead of the Christmas holiday and the samecould be said about technology stocks.
Stocks traded ina narrow range before breaking out late in the session.
The S&P 500 closed0.1% higher while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.28%. Semiconductorstocks (SMH) outperformed, closing 0.45% higher.
Synaptics (SYNA)fell 1.6% after OTR Global was cautious on the stock regarding whether it wouldbe in the next Samsung Galaxy Phone.
NVIDIA (NVDA+2.5%) hit a new all-time again today. Goldman added to the stock that is up ~-230%YTD to its Conviction Buy List earlier in the week. The leader in visual computing posted record sales (+54% to $2.0 billion), margins (non-GAAP grossmargin +110 basis points to 89.2%) and operating income (+130% to $708 mln)last month.
NVDA's GPUs are leading chips that enable machine learning --- a themethat will become increasingly important over time. The stock trades at 38x FY16EPS and 8.7x sales. NVDA is the best performing technology stock in the S&P500 YTD, followed by Applied Materials (AMAT +75%) and Micron (MU +65%).
Red Hat (RHT +3.3%)reclaimed the 70 level today after falling 14% yesterday following a disappointingearnings report. The company missed billings estimates due to some large dealsgetting pushed out. The stock trades at ~5x sales.
Electronicsretailer Best Buy (BBY) has plummeted that last three sessions as concerns havegrown about declining traffic across the retails sector.
