Thursday Morning Reads
Reads:
- Plans to Spend $120 Billion
- Could Tax Increases Speed Up the Economy?
- U.S. Labor Market Is Helping Fed Be More Patient
- Wall Street’s High-Stake Bets
- Gazing Into the Recession Crystal Ball
- How Google’s Founders Slowly Stepped Away
- Ramping Up Fight With Critics and Foes
- Grew Up to Lead Cisco
- The Rise Of Restaurants With No Diners
- The Portfolio Gap
News:
- Futures point to more gains
- OPEC+ weighs deeper oil output cuts
- Aramco to announce IPO share price
- Microsoft gets new Street-high target
- BP raises stake in Lightsource BP to 50%
- Sage Therapeutics' SAGE-217 flunks MDD study; shares down 53% premarket
- The Toronto-Dominion Bank EPS misses by C$0.15, beats on revenue
- Takata recalls another 1.4M air bags
- Top Boeing engineer at center of 737 MAX crisis to retire - report
- GM sets sights on battery joint venture
- ACADIA Pharma up 10% premarket on positive pimavanserin data
- Regeneron's pozelimab shows positive effect in PNH study
Premium:
Morning Charts:
Reports out of Vienna suggest OPEC and its allies led by Russia are discussing increasing current cuts of 1.2M barrels per day by more than 400K bpd, as well as extending their agreement from March, to June or later. Crude futures already soared 4.2% on Wednesday - the biggest gain since the attacks on Saudi Aramco's (ARMCO) facilities - on output cut rumors and tightening American stockpiles. A final decision by OPEC+ is likely to come tomorrow afternoon. The group has curbed supply since 2017 to counter booming output from the U.S., which has become the world's largest producer.
Go deeper: QuandaryFX sees crude rallying 50% over the next year.
Saudi Arabia is expected to publish the initial share price of Aramco (ARMCO) today, which will list locally on the Tadawul stock exchange. The current price range puts the oil giant's value at between $1.6T to $1.7T, a figure that's set to beat the record $25B raised by Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) when it debuted in New York in 2014. A 1.5% stake in Aramco is being offered, with 0.5% available to individual retail buyers and 1% for institutional investors.
Go deeper: Robert Boslego feels problems are mounting for Saudi Aramco.
Traders are closely monitoring the prospect of a Phase One trade deal with just 10 days to go before Washington is poised to impose another $156B of tariffs on Chinese goods. Trade optimism led the DJIA to break a three-day decline on Wednesday and rise nearly 150 points, while U.S. futures aimed to extend the gains overnight, climbing another 0.4%. On the data front, the latest weekly jobless claims will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET, while earnings season wraps up with results from Tiffany (NYSE:TIF), Dollar General (NYSE:DG), Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) and DocuSign (NASDAQ:DOCU).
Go deeper: Chris Ciovacco flashes back to December 2018 to compare trends.
Shari Redstone's dream comes true
Viacom (NASDAQ:VIA) and CBS (NYSE:CBS) have completed their re-merger, scaling up against big competition with more than 140,000 premium TV episodes, 3,600 film titles and $13B in annual content investment. ViacomCBS Class A "VIACA" and Class B "VIAC" shares will begin trading today on the Nasdaq. The new company accounts for 22% of TV viewership in the U.S., with the highest share of broadcast and cable viewing across key demographics.
Go deeper: Some of Viacom assets could hamper value creation, according to Daniel Jones.
Local United Auto Workers leaders nationwide have approved a new four-year labor contract with Fiat Chrysler (NYSE:FCAU), sending it to their rank-and-file members for final approval. Former GM (NYSE:GM) board member Joe Ashton, a retired UAW leader, also pleaded guilty to criminal charges as part of an ongoing federal corruption probe into the union. Lastly, General Motors announced it will be laying off more than 800 employees as it converts its Detroit Hamtramck plant to an electric vehicle facility, though most of the workers will be offered buyouts or jobs at other factories.
Protests are rocking France again and threatening to bring the country to a standstill over Emmanuel Macron's plan for a top-to-bottom rebuilding of the pension system. Unions representing everyone from transport workers to lawyers, doctors, teachers and students are going on an indefinite "greve," or strike, starting today. The walkouts come as German industrial orders fell unexpectedly in October and eurozone retail sales slumped a worse-than-forecast 0.6%.
Johnson pledges Brexit in 100 days
"This is the most important election in a generation - important because it will define if we go forward as a country or remain stuck, stalled, repeating the same arguments of the last three years with yet more damaging uncertainty," Boris Johnson declared on the campaign trail. Should he win the general election, Johnson would bring his EU withdrawal agreement bill before MPs for an initial vote before Christmas, with the aim of leaving the EU by January 31. Britain would then enter a transition period for the remainder of 2020 as a trade deal is finalized with the bloc.
"We're delighted to share that more than 10M people have accounts on Robinhood," the company wrote in a blog post, rapidly growing from 1M subs in 2016 and 6M accounts in October of 2018. To put that in context, the combined Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) and TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ:AMTD) brokerage giant will serve about 24M clients. The Schwab deal was announced last week after all major brokerages dropped stock trading commission fees to keep up with the trend set by Robinhood, which landed a $7.6B valuation in July after its latest funding round.
What else is happening...
General Motors (GM) sets sights on battery joint venture.
Top Boeing (NYSE:BA) engineer at center of 737 MAX crisis to retire.
WeWork (WE) opened 52 new buildings this week.
Stimulus packages from Hong Kong and Japan.
Huawei fights FCC rural carrier purchase ban.
RBI holds rates, slashes GDP forecast.
Remember the Takata (OTCPK:TKTDQ) crisis? It's back.
Campbell Soup (NYSE:CPB) +1.9% with turnaround on track.
Slack Technologies (NYSE:WORK) +1.9% AH on beats, in-line outlook.
In Asia, Japan +0.7%. Hong Kong +0.6%. China +0.7%. India +0.2%.
In Europe, at midday, London -0.1%. Paris +0.8%. Frankfurt +0.3%.
Futures at 6:20, Dow +0.4%. S&P +0.4%. Nasdaq +0.5%. Crude +0.2% to $58.56. Gold -0.1% to $1479.40. Bitcoin +2.5% to $7374.
Ten-year Treasury Yield flat at 1.78%Today's Economic Calendar
7:30 Challenger Job-Cut Report
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
8:30 International Trade
10:00 Factory Orders
10:00 Randal Quarles: “Testimony Before the Senate Banking Committee”
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet