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Elon Musk boosts Sign app, Sign Advance inventory jumps 1100%

Elon Musk boosts Signal app, Signal Advance stock jumps 1100%

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, stands on the construction site of the Tesla Gigafactory. In Grünheide near Berlin, September 3, 2020.

Patrick Pleul | Image Alliance | Getty Images

When Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, asked his Twitter followers on Thursday to “use Signal”, he meant the encrypted messaging app. Some people seem to have got it wrong.

Shares of an obscure and independent company called Signal Advance, which trades over the counter, rose 527% Thursday and another 91% on Friday, from 60 cents to $ 7.19.

The signal Musk was referring to is operated by a non-profit organization and serves as an alternative to SMS apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Apple’s messaging service. That signal went to Twitter on Friday to clarify that it has nothing to do with Signal Advance.

“It’s understandable that people would want to invest in Signal’s record growth, but it’s not us,” Signal wrote. “We are an independent 501c3 and our only investment is in your privacy.”

It’s a known problem on Wall Street.

In April 2019, the day Zoom Video Communications made its much-anticipated market debut under the ticker symbol ZM, a Chinese company called Zoom Technologies rose more than 80% in two hours of trading. The stock gave up most of those gains that day, closing 10%.

Six years earlier, as investors waited for Twitter to go public, shares in Tweeter Home Entertainment Group rose more than 1,000%.

Signal Advance was founded in Texas in 1992 under the name Biodyne and provided services to medical and legal professionals. The company shifted its focus to the use of technology in healthcare and changed its name to Signal Advance. The thinly traded stock hit the market in 2014.

Signal Advance is so small it doesn’t file any financial information with the SEC. As of March 2019, there were no full-time employees other than CEO Chris Hymel who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Due to the swarm of unintended investor interest, the company now has a market cap of $ 660 million, down from $ 55 million two days ago. As of Thursday, the stock had traded below $ 1 since 2015.

The Signal Messaging app, supported by the Signal Technology Foundation, “runs on donations only,” said a New York article published in October.

The group had other concerns after Musk tweeted his 41-plus million followers. Signal said Thursday there were technical issues with reviews because “so many new people are trying to join”.

Both technical snafu and frantic trading in an unrelated stock underscore Musk’s growing influence. On Thursday, he became the richest person in the world thanks to Tesla’s nearly 800% increase in market cap last year. On Friday, Tesla became the fifth largest public company in the United States, surpassing Facebook.

CLOCK: Former Ford CEO Mark Fields on what Tesla needs to focus on in 2021

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Inventory Markets Rise Amid Hopes for Fiscal Stimulus: Stay Updates

Commercial space for rent in New York City. Stay-at-home orders and other restrictions have left millions without work as businesses close.

Here’s what you need to know:

The already sputtering economic rebound went into reverse in December, as employers laid off workers amid rising coronavirus cases and waning government aid.

U.S. employers cut 140,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department said Friday. It was the first net decline in payrolls since last spring’s mass layoffs, and though the December loss was nowhere near that scale, it represented a discouraging reversal for the once-promising recovery. The U.S. economy still has about 10 million fewer jobs than before the pandemic began.

The December losses were heavily concentrated in leisure and hospitality businesses, which have been hit especially hard by the pandemic. The industry cut nearly half a million jobs in December, while sectors less exposed to the pandemic continued to add workers.

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.7 percent, down sharply from its high of nearly 15 percent in April but still close to double the 3.5 percent rate in the same month a year earlier.

“We’re losing ground again,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at the accounting firm Grant Thornton. “Most notably, this is still very much a low-wage recession, and the losses were where we first saw them when the pandemic hit.”

Unemployment rate

By Ella Koeze·Seasonally adjusted·Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Hiring has slowed every month since June, and the economy lost more than nine million jobs in 2020 as a whole, the first calendar-year decline since 2010 and the worst on a percentage basis since the aftermath of World War II.

Congress last month passed a $900 billion relief package that will provide temporary support to households and businesses and could give a boost to the broader economy. And in the longer run, the arrival of coronavirus vaccines should allow the return of activity that has been suppressed by the pandemic.

But the vaccine and the aid came too late to prevent a sharp slowdown in growth.

“We did have a pullback in the economy,” said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America. “If stimulus was passed earlier, maybe that could have been avoided.”

When the economy shut down last spring, many workers thought they would be out of a job for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months.

Nine months later, many still aren’t back on the job.

The Labor Department’s monthly jobs report on Friday showed that nearly four million Americans had been out of work for more than six months, economists’ standard threshold for long-term unemployment. That was up by 27,000 from November, and roughly quadruple the number before the pandemic began.

Those figures almost certainly understate the scope of the problem. People who aren’t looking for work, whether because they don’t believe jobs are available or because they are caring for children or other family members, aren’t counted as unemployed.

The number of people who have been unemployed long-term is still rising

Share of unemployed who have been out of work 27 weeks or longer

By Ella Koeze·Seasonally adjusted·Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

When the data was collected in mid-December, many of the long-term jobless faced a frightening deadline: Federal programs that extended unemployment benefits beyond their standard six-month limit were set to expire at the end of the year. The aid package later passed by Congress and signed by President Trump extended the programs, but by less than three months.

Long-term joblessness was a defining feature of the last recession a decade ago, when millions eventually gave up looking for work, in some cases permanently. If that pattern repeats, it could have long-term consequences, particularly for people with disabilities, criminal records or other characteristics that make it hard to find jobs even in the best of times.

“These are the kinds of workers who are really only recruited and called upon in a very tight labor market, and it may take us a long time to get back there,” said Julia Pollak, a labor economist with the hiring site ZipRecruiter. “That is the worry, that there are these groups of people who will drop out now and who will only really find good opportunities again after a sustained and lengthy expansion.”

State and local governments continued to cut payroll employment in December, a sign that a crucial sector was bleeding jobs nine months into the pandemic.

Those governments account for about 13 percent of employment in the United States, which makes their trajectory extremely important to the nation’s labor market outlook. Because most are required to balance their budgets, lower income or higher expenses can lead to big job cuts.

State and local employers shed 51,000 workers in December compared with the prior month. As of last month, they reported 1.4 million fewer jobs than in February, the month before the pandemic job losses started.

The big employment cuts come despite revenue losses that appear milder than many analysts had expected at the pandemic’s outset. Louise Sheiner at the Brookings Institution estimated in a recent post that states would miss $350 billion in revenue over three years. Meanwhile, by her estimation, they received about $280 billion in direct and indirect federal aid in a March relief package, and about $120 billion more — largely indirectly — with the most recent fiscal package.

But expenses have shot up as the states try to deal with the public health crisis, which could leave budgets under strain even as federal aid helps to overcome revenue shortfalls. And the economic hit from the virus has not been evenly spread — some places are struggling more acutely.

From an employment standpoint, it’s also important that states were finalizing budgets when worse outcomes were expected, and may have cut back as a result, Ms. Sheiner wrote.

“What we’re seeing is that it’s different state to state,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said at a news conference in December. But he pointed out that many employees had been cut from state payrolls, at least temporarily. “We’re watching carefully to understand why that many people have been let go and what really are the sources,” he said.

Wall Street continued its rally on Friday, fueled by bets on robust fiscal stimulus coming from a Democratic-led government in Washington, despite fresh evidence that the United States economy is backsliding as the pandemic surges.

The S&P 500 rose less than half a percent in early trading, after reaching a record on Thursday. The Stoxx Europe 600 was 0.6 percent higher, and the FTSE 100 in Britain dipped slightly. In Asia, the Nikkei 225 in Japan closed with a gain of 2.4 percent, climbing to a level it last hit in 1990.

Though Washington continues to reverberate after a pro-Trump mob overran the Capitol building on Wednesday, the investing world is instead focused on the wave of spending that could come as Democrats assume leadership of the White House and both houses of Congress.

Investors also seemed to look past the Labor Department’s report on December payrolls, which showed U.S. employers cut 140,000 jobs last month, the first drop since last spring. The weak report bolsters the argument that more economic stimulus is needed.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs said they expected $750 billion in additional spending in the first three months of the year, while their counterparts at Morgan Stanley are forecasting as much as $1 trillion in spending.

At the same time, few on Wall Street seem to think Democrats will prioritize tax increases, which had previously been seen as a potential risk of a Democratic sweep. The result is almost an ideal scenario for a range of investments geared to the short-term outlook for economic growth.

That’s been most evident in the so-called cyclical areas of the stock market, which include industrial, material and financial shares. Small-capitalization stocks, closely tied to the outlook for shorter-term American economic growth, are also rallying, as are companies that will profit from President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s pledges to spend heavily on infrastructure and alternative energy.

“Now you have the potential for more stimulus, even possibly an infrastructure spend,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at the investment management firm Invesco on Thursday. “So, I think the stock market is enthused right now. And that enthusiasm is pretty strong.”

Gains continued in other financial markets too. Oil prices continued their rally, with Brent crude climbing 1.6 percent, to $55.25 a barrel, and West Texas Intermediate rallying to above $51 a barrel.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note also continued to rise, reaching 1.09 percent on Thursday. The rise in yields most likely reflects expectations that the Treasury will be issuing large amounts of debt to finance renewed government spending.

Credit…Mohamed Sadek for The New York Times

Several states say they are moving quickly to restore federal unemployment benefits that lapsed last month when President Trump delayed signing a second round of federal pandemic relief.

A handful, including New York, Texas, Maryland and California, say they have started sending out the weekly $300 supplement that was part of the legislation, while others like Ohio say they are awaiting more guidance from the U.S. Labor Department.

Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, said that “at least half of the states should have something up by next week.”

Congress approved 11 weeks of additional benefits, and the entire amount will ultimately be delivered to eligible workers even if payments are initially delayed.

“Any claims for the first week will be backdated,” said James Bernsen, deputy director of communications at the Texas Workforce Commission.

In addition to a $300-a-week supplement for those receiving unemployment benefits, the $900 billion emergency relief package renews two other jobless programs created last March as part of the CARES Act.

One, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, covers freelancers, part-time hires, seasonal workers and others who do not normally qualify for state unemployment benefits. A second, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, extends benefits for workers who have exhausted their state allotment.

This latest round also offers additional assistance for people who cobble together their income by combining a salaried job with freelance gigs. The new program, called Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation, provides a $100 weekly payment to such workers in addition to their Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits.

Credit…Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

  • Boeing agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion in a legal settlement with the Justice Department stemming from the 737 Max debacle, the government said on Thursday. The agreement resolves a criminal charge that Boeing conspired to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates the company and evaluates its planes. With less than two weeks left in the Trump administration, the agreement takes the question of how a Biden Justice Department would view a settlement off the table. President Trump had repeatedly discussed the importance of Boeing to the economy, even going so far last year to say he favored a bailout for the company.

  • Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, is now the richest person in the world. An increase in Tesla’s share price on Thursday pushed Mr. Musk past Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest people. Mr. Musk’s net worth was $195 billion by the end of trading on Thursday, $10 billion more than that of Mr. Bezos’s. Mr. Musk’s wealth has increased by more than $150 billion over the past 12 months, thanks to a rally in Tesla’s share price, which surged 743 percent in 2020. The carmaker’s shares rose nearly 8 percent on Thursday.

  • Wayfair, the furniture and home goods e-commerce business, said on Thursday that all of its U.S. employees would be paid at least $15 an hour. The increase, which took effect on Sunday, applies to full-time, part-time and seasonal employees. More than 40 percent of Wayfair’s hourly workers across its U.S. supply chain and customer service operations received a pay bump.

  • The Tiffany-LVMH saga has finally come to a well-polished, multifaceted end. LVMH, the French conglomerate, completed its acquisition of the American jewelry brand on Thursday, and it was out with the old and in with the new — executives, anyway. After a brief transition period, gone will be Reed Krakoff, Tiffany’s chief artistic officer. Also leaving will be Daniella Vitale, the chief brand officer. In their place comes Alexandre Arnault, who will become executive vice president, product and communications.

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AMC seeks $550 million as inventory closes at report low

AMC seeks $550 million as stock closes at record low

The world’s largest cinema chain is still around $ 550 million away from its fundraising goal.

On Tuesday, AMC CEO Adam Aron said the company managed to raise just over $ 200 million of the $ 750 million it will need to fund its cash needs by the end of this year.

“We need to raise more but we are working hard and we have a plan and blueprint to get there,” he said. “Only time will tell if we get there or not.”

Aron’s appearance on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” comes on the same day that his company’s stock fell to a 52-week intraday low of $ 1.91 per share and closed at a record low of $ 1.98 per share.

AMC has been crippled by the coronavirus pandemic and its stocks reflect investors’ lack of confidence in the immediate recovery of the cinema industry. The company’s shares fell more than 70% in 2020.

The cinemas had to close in mid-March and spent more than six months closed to the public last year. AMC operates around 400 of its almost 600 theaters with limited seating and shorter opening hours. Theaters in New York City and parts of California will remain closed.

The company is currently trying to renegotiate its rent payments with landlords and is looking to cut, cut and deferred. Should the company not be able to secure additional sources of liquidity, it may have to initiate bankruptcy proceedings.

AMC is not eligible for grants from the Save Our Stages Act of $ 15 billion, which is part of the far larger coronavirus aid package of $ 900 billion, as it is a publicly traded company with locations in more acts as 10 states.

AMC went into the pandemic with nearly $ 5 billion in debt, which it amassed by adding luxury seating to its theaters and buying out rivals like Carmike and Odeon.

The company has already renegotiated its debt to improve its balance sheet and received a $ 100 million investment from Mudrick Capital Management in December.

“We cut out our work for ourselves,” said Aron. “We have to raise more money to get to the other side. Still, we’ve done it four times and that’s our focus.”

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Inventory futures flat after S&P 500 suffers first unfavorable begin to a 12 months since 2016

Stock futures flat after S&P 500 suffers first negative start to a year since 2016

Stock futures remained stable in overnight trading on Monday after the S&P 500 suffered its first decline since 2016.

The futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 10 points. S&P 500 futures were unchanged and Nasdaq 100 futures fell less than 0.1%.

Movements in futures came after a sharp sell-off on Wall Street at the start of 2021. The S&P 500 fell 1.5%, its worst daily performance since October 27th. Ten out of eleven S&P 500 sectors posted losses, led by real estate.

The blue chip Dow lost 382 points after losing 700 points from its daily low. The Nasdaq Composite was down 1.4% as the FAANG block collapsed early in the new year.

The market’s widespread sell-off came ahead of the Georgia runoff election on Tuesday, which will determine whether Republicans can retain control of the Senate. In the meantime, rising Covid-19 cases around the world and new lockdown restrictions kept investors informed.

“Investors are feeling nervous this week,” Lindsey Bell, chief investment strategist at Ally Invest, said in an email. “COVID cases continue to rise and a new variant of the virus is spreading around the world. Tomorrow’s run-off elections in Georgia could determine the composition of the Senate and the market has generally done better in a divided Congress.”

Many fear that higher tax rates and more progressive policies could become a reality once the Democrats take control of the Senate. However, such an outcome could create the opportunity for a larger and faster package of expenses that will help support the market.

“Even if the Democrats get control, the margin will be remarkably small and analysts are skeptical of the possibility of a significant change in tax or regulatory policy,” said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide, in a note. “However, democratic control could trigger another round of coronavirus stimuli and possibly an infrastructure package.”

England imposed a third coronavirus lockdown on Monday as the region grappled with a more transmissible variant of Covid-19. New York State has confirmed its first case of the new tribe, Governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday.

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China response on delisting of Chinese language firms on New York Inventory Trade

China response on delisting of Chinese companies on New York Stock Exchange

A woman adjusts a Chinese flag near US flags.

Ng Han Guan | AFP | Getty Images

We’ll have to see if the Chinese government will retaliate against the US. But I think the actual things to be done won’t matter …

Ronald Wan

non-executive chairman at Partners Financial Holdings

When asked if more Chinese companies could be delisted, Brendan Ahern, chief investment officer of the investment firm KraneShares, said: “I don’t see any expansion of these three specific names just because it was really driven by this executive order.”

Speaking to CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia on Monday, he said the order could “reverse course” after President-elect Joe Biden was sworn in on Jan. 20.

He added that on the Chinese side, Beijing “wants the Biden government to really start the relationship over.”

Ronald Wan, non-executive chairman of Partners Financial Holdings, added that the measures Beijing is taking are unlikely to be “significant”.

“We’ll have to see if the Chinese government will retaliate against the US. But I think the actual actions won’t matter, which may restrict some type of US government-affiliated company, activity in China or Hong Kong. But I think the government is still welcoming US capital and funds to get into the Asian and Hong Kong markets, “he told CNBC’s Street Signs Asia on Monday.

Ahern said investors in the three US-listed stocks – China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom – will be able to convert them into their Hong Kong-listed stocks.

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New York Inventory Trade to Delist China Cell, Amongst Others

New York Stock Exchange to Delist China Mobile, Among Others

The New York Stock Exchange announced that it would delist the three major state-owned telecommunications companies in China by order of the Trump administration in order to symbolically end the longstanding relationship between the Chinese business community and Wall Street.

The exchange said in a statement late Thursday that it would cease trading shares in China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom until Jan. 11. She cited an executive order issued in November by the Trump administration that prevented Americans from investing in companies with ties to the Chinese military.

The U.S. Department of Defense had previously listed the three companies as having significant ties to Chinese military and security forces.

The company’s Hong Kong offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday, New Year’s Day.

The delistings were generally expected after the executive order was issued in November. The order was part of a broader effort by American officials to weaken the broad economic ties between the United States and China, including Chinese access to money on Wall Street.

The move is likely to have little impact on China’s military or security ambitions, which are generously funded by Beijing, or on the companies themselves, which can raise money from international investors by selling shares in Hong Kong.

The delisting of the three telecommunications giants, however, reflects China’s rise in power and prosperity, as well as growing alienation between the world’s two largest economies. It also underscores the hesitation in long-standing business ties between the United States and China, built over decades as China attempted to internationalize and reform its state corporate sizes.

All three companies are under the firm control of Beijing. They are ultimately owned by a government agency, the State Assets Monitoring and Management Commission, and are often directed to pursue Beijing’s goals. China’s ruling Communist Party sometimes mixes executives between the three companies.

They are the only three companies in China allowed to provide broad telecommunications network services, which Beijing regards as a strategic industry that must remain under state control.

Such large, state-controlled corporations have long been viewed by economists and even some Chinese officials as a drag on the country’s growth.

China Mobile, the largest of the three companies, first listed its shares in New York in 1997, at a crucial time for the Chinese economy. Reform-minded officials in Beijing sought to restart economic growth after China’s crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 deterred foreign investors and delayed overhauls officials deemed necessary.

One such overhaul had to do with bloated state-owned companies. China’s leaders forced them to lay off workers and focus on profit and productivity. Listing stocks in the United States, it was said, would make them more responsive to investors and more focused on the bottom line.

China Mobile was one of the first large Chinese state-owned companies to sell shares in New York. The other telecommunications companies followed, as did state banks, oil companies and airlines. Large private Chinese companies have also sold stocks there, including Alibaba, the online shopping giant that held the world’s largest IPO in New York in 2014.

Today, China’s need for money and expertise has diminished from Wall Street. The stock exchanges in Shanghai and Hong Kong are among the largest in the world. Alibaba underscored the shift, last year listing shares in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese city where investors, unlike the mainland, can move money freely across its borders.

The Chinese leaders’ view of state-owned companies has also changed. Xi Jinping, China’s leading politician, spoke about making state-owned companies bigger and stronger than leaner. This has raised concerns among some economists and entrepreneurs that the Chinese government is playing a bigger role in private companies.

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Gene Munster says Apple’s inventory has a path to $three trillion market cap

Gene Munster says Apple's stock has a path to $3 trillion market cap

Tech investor Gene Munster told CNBC Thursday that he saw a sensible path for Apple to reach a future market cap of $ 3 trillion.

The iPhone maker was the first publicly traded US company to reach a market capitalization of $ 2 trillion in August – a milestone that Munster anticipated in January when he advocated its stock trading 50% higher. As of Thursday, Apple was valued at nearly $ 2.3 trillion at roughly $ 133 per share.

Munster, who reported to Apple as a longtime analyst at investment bank Piper Jaffray, said on Squawk Box that he believes the California-based company can realistically hit $ 200 per share. That would put the market cap over $ 3 trillion.

“It has to be anchored in the result. This is the powerful piece of Apple history,” said Munster, co-founder of venture capital firm Loup Ventures. He said his forecast was based on Apple trading in value for money, or a multiple of 35, for earnings estimates for 2022.

“It’s a year out there, but I’m fast forwarding the conversation to the middle and back half of next year, and at that point we’ll be talking about 2022. If the market can take those 35 multiples – you know, we’re talking.” here not by an Amazon-like multiple – I think that this path is there, “said Münster.

Apple’s current price-to-earnings ratio is close to 41, after its stock rose 81% this year. Amazon, whose shares are up 76% this year, is trading 95 times.

One catalyst that could help push Apple further is the greater spread of remote working that is being triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, Munster said.

“This is generally seen as a game on the iPhone, a 5G game. That is good. That will have a positive effect on the numbers, but I think this acceleration of the digital transformation is powerful,” said Münster. “People who work from anywhere will upgrade and buy more Macs, iPads and services in the next 12 to 24 months.”

Munster also reiterated his belief that Apple’s multiples could withstand further expansion as investors rethink the company, which in recent years has been pushing to generate more revenue from services to increase hardware sales.

Munster, for his part, said Apple could use its hardware business for a service, such as buying a Mac by subscription. “We believe this is coming, and talking more about cars is a great opportunity for Apple’s multiples,” Munster said, alluding to reports that Apple may be making an electric car in a few years.

More broadly, he said he believes Apple will continue its strong stock performance into 2021, especially when compared to its so-called FAANG brothers. In addition to Apple, the group of technology companies also includes Amazon, Facebook, Google’s parent alphabet and Netflix.

“We believe there will be another break from FAANG,” said Münster, with Facebook and Netflix lagging behind Apple and Amazon. “I think the performance will come back from Apple in 2021. It may seem numb for a company to run FAANG for three straight years, but I think this will actually happen. I think this has a trail of 200 U.S. dollar [per share]. “

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Inventory futures rise as market tries to reclaim report highs in last days of 2020

Stock futures rise as market tries to reclaim record highs in final days of 2020

U.S. stock index futures were slightly higher early Wednesday morning as the market tried to regain record highs in the final days of 2020.

Contracts tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average scored 114 points. S&P 500 futures rose 15 points and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 48 points.

Key averages closed lower Tuesday, abandoning early gains that drove stocks to record highs on the opening bell. Both the Dow and S&P 500 snapped three-day winning streaks, each down 0.22%. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.38%.

The Russell 2000 closed 1.85% lower for the third straight year.

In Washington, lawmakers continued to disagree on direct payments to Americans. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked Chuck Schumer’s efforts to expedite the bill passed by Parliament late Monday that would increase checks from $ 600 to $ 2,000. The stimulus payments could run out on Tuesday evening, said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

President Donald Trump backed higher payments and said in a tweet on Tuesday that the move should be approved “ASAP. $ 600 is not enough!”

With only two trading days a year left, the key averages are on the way to rising higher by 2020. The Dow was up 6.3% over the year, while the S&P 500 was up 15.36%. Despite recent selling pressures, the Russell 2000 is still up 17.4% over the year.

The clear winner since the beginning of the year remains the Nasdaq Composite, which is up 43%.

“We expect strong economic growth to recover in 2021 after headwinds from the pandemic in 2020 and the US-China trade war in 2019,” said Brian Demain, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors. “While the leadership so far has been tight – mostly limited to the digital economy – we expect a deepening recovery as vaccines become widespread and consumers can re-enter the physical economy,” he added.

The number of Covid cases is still higher. The US is currently seeing at least 180,905 new cases and at least 2,210 virus-related deaths per day, based on a seven-day average calculated by CNBC using data from Johns Hopkins University. On Tuesday, the US confirmed its first case of the faster-spreading strain of coronavirus, originally discovered in the UK

Some investors say another potential headwind for stocks ahead is the surge in some of the hottest stocks of the year.

Interactive Brokers Chairman Thomas Peterffy said on Squawk Alley on Tuesday that a “fantastically unusual” thing had happened in the past few days: his customers are net below the market for the first time.

“Our customers are usually on the sell side of options, and there is such a demand for these out of the money options that our customers tend to become sellers,” he said. “So the Robinhood people have long options and Interactive Brokers clients have few options,” he added. In other words, while this is not necessarily a direct bet on the downtrend, customers on the other hand take advantage of such high demand.

Charles Bobrinskoy, vice chairman of Ariel Investments, echoed the dangers of a dynamic market.

“It cannot be that the way to win investing is just to buy what has increased in recent years,” he said Tuesday on CNBC’s Closing Bell. “That works in momentum markets. Momentum markets are wonderful until they turn. But when they turn, it’s ugly,” he said.

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U.S. inventory futures rise as Wall Avenue set to enter final week of 2020

U.S. stock futures rise as Wall Street set to enter last week of 2020

Traders work on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

NYSE

The stock futures rose slightly in night trading on the Sunday before the last trading week of 2020.

The futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 149 points. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were also trading in slightly positive territory.

President Donald Trump signed a $ 900 billion law on Covid-19 that prevented the government from closing and expanded unemployment benefits to millions of Americans. The signing came days after Trump proposed vetoing the legislation and calling for $ 2,000 in direct payments to Americans instead of $ 600.

“I’m signing this bill to restore unemployment benefits, stop evictions, provide rental support, add money for PPP, get our airline employees back to work, add significantly more money to distribute vaccines, and much more,” Trump said in a statement on Sunday evening.

Wall Street has had a quiet week of holidays with major averages posting flat returns. The S&P 500 fell 0.2% last week as some investors took off year-end chips. The 30-share Dow gained 0.1% over the same period.

Profit taking could rise in the last week of the year, which has seen surprisingly high returns so far. The S&P 500 is up 14.6% year-to-date, while the Dow is up 5.8%. The Nasdaq is up 42.7% this year as investors preferred high-growth technology names amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Sunday that the country could see a surge in new Covid-19 infections after Christmas and New Years. Two vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna started the distribution process this month. To date, over a million people have been vaccinated in the United States.

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Tesla Joins the S&P 500: Dwell Inventory Market Updates

A supermarket in London earlier this month. Britain relies on the European Union for about a quarter of its food, mainly fresh fruit and vegetables. 

Here’s what you need to know:

By: Ella Koeze·Source: Refinitiv

Financial markets were jolted on Monday by the news that a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus had led to the suspension of some trade and travel with Britain and another lockdown in London, a new threat that overshadowed progress in Washington toward a long-awaited economic aid package.

But Wall Street’s major benchmarks bounced off their lowest levels of the day, with the Dow Jones industrial average recouping all of its losses and the S&P 500 index down a little more than half a percent by 1 p.m. in New York.

The retreat was sharper in Europe, where the Stoxx Europe 600 index dropped 2.7 percent. The FTSE 100 in Britain fell 1.7 percent, while the FTSE 250, which includes companies that are more oriented to the British economy, declined more than 2 percent.

The British pound fell against all other major currencies. It declined as much as 1.8 percent against the dollar. Crude oil prices were nearly 4 percent lower, but also off of their worst levels of the day.

Over the weekend, nearby countries shut their borders to travelers from Britain as London and the surrounding area were put into a lockdown after the government’s health secretary said a new strain of the coronavirus was “out of control.” France also stopped freight imports from Britain, a move that will worsen border disruptions and has raised concerns about the supply of fresh food.

By Monday, some countries outside of Europe also began to close their borders to travelers. Israel said most foreign nationals wouldn’t be allowed to enter, while Saudi Arabia announced a one week ban on all international travel.
But concern about the economic impact of such restrictions didn’t weigh on Wall Street quite as heavily as it did in Europe, in part because of the fact that congressional leaders have reached a deal on a $900 billion stimulus package, which is expected to include $600 stimulus payments to millions of Americans and strengthen unemployment benefits.

The congressional spending package is expected to include most of the elements that economists have long said were crucial to avoiding further calamity and aiding a recovery. It extends unemployment benefits for millions at risk of losing them, and adds money to their checks to help pay their bills. It revives the Paycheck Protection Program, which kept many small businesses afloat last spring.

Trading in the U.S. did reflect some concerns about the new restrictions in Europe. Shares of Airlines, cruise lines and casinos — companies that will be hardest hit by travel restrictions — fared poorly. As crude oil prices retreated, reflecting worry about the global economy, energy stocks were also amng the worst performers.

But another factor was also weighing on the S&P 500 on Monday — the addition of Tesla to the index.

With a market cap of more than $600 billion, Tesla is the largest ever addition to the index, requiring roughly $90 billion worth of trading as fund managers who have to try and match their holdings to the index have to sell other stock.

Gainers were concentrated in the financial sector, after the Federal Reserve on Friday said that the country’s largest banks were sturdy enough financially to survive a severe economic shock related to the pandemic. The Fed will allow them to return more money to shareholders in early 2021 as long as the banks show that they are profitable.

Goldman Sachs rose over 7 percent, Morgan Stanley jumped nearly 6 percent and JPMorgan Chase climbed more than 4 percent.

United States › United StatesOn Dec. 20 14-day change
New cases 179,803 +10%
New deaths 1,422 +19%
World › WorldOn Dec. 20 14-day change
New cases 536,082 +4%
New deaths 7,561 +5%

Where cases per capita are
highest

U.K. Virus Crisis

Credit…Andy Rain/EPA, via Shutterstock

British shoppers were warned Monday of the possibility of a “serious disruption to U.K. Christmas fresh food supplies” stemming from France’s decision to suspend all trucks arriving from Britain.

Consumers were advised by trade groups not to panic shop in the days leading to Friday’s Christmas holiday.

France is trying to stop the spread of a more contagious strain of coronavirus that Britain’s health minister said had grown “out of control” in parts of England. Over the weekend, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced tighter restrictions on people living in London and the surrounding area.

On Sunday night, France suspended the arrival of goods that are transported by truck and cross the English Channel either via ferry or through the Eurotunnel, over fears the drivers could carry the disease. The rules are to last 48 hours.

As a result, the Port of Dover, just 21 miles across the Channel from France and one of Europe’s busiest ferry ports, with just two operators moving 10,000 trucks each day, was closed to outbound traffic on Monday. About 20 miles west, the transport hub at Folkestone, connected to France by the Eurotunnel, was also closed. Truck drivers bound for the continent parked along the roadways leading to Dover, in a procedure known as Operation Stack that was devised to deal with potential disruptions caused by Brexit.

Grant Shapps, Britain’s transport minister, said about 20 percent of the freight moving in and out of England was affected by the closures. Unaccompanied goods — such as those loaded in shipping containers, carried on vessels — will continue to be admitted into France and goods can still be driven to other countries, such as the Netherlands, from smaller ports.

Still, Britain relies on imported fresh fruit and vegetables trucked in from Europe, especially in the winter. Food can still be taken by truck from France into Britain, but there are concerns truck drivers won’t go if they risk getting marooned in Britain.

The travel ban has “the potential to cause serious disruption to U.K. Christmas fresh food supplies — and exports of U.K. food and drink,” Ian Wright, the chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation, said in a statement.

The closure of ports is also disrupting parcel deliveries. Deutsche Post DHL said deliveries of parcels to Britain would also be stopped as more countries impose travel bans on Britain.

Mr. Johnson said on Monday afternoon that “the vast majority of food, medicines and other supplies are coming and going as normal.” In a news conference, Mr. Johnson added that he was in touch with French President Emmanuel Macron to try to find a way to get goods moving again “as fast as possible.”

The impact is also being felt in France, where shipments of fresh fish and shellfish will not arrive. Britain sends more seafood to the European Union than it imports, especially stocks of salmon, lobster and langoustines. A Scottish salmon trade group warned that more than £1 million of fresh salmon would be caught up in the port closure during this peak season.

The BBC reported that Sainsbury’s, one Britain’s largest supermarkets, said food for Christmas was already in hand, but if the travel suspension lasted longer, there would be “gaps over the coming days” in items such as lettuce, salad leaves, cauliflowers, broccoli and citrus fruit.

About a quarter of food consumed in Britain is imported from the European Union, Research from the London School of Economics estimated that more than half of the tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, mushrooms, peppers and lettuce Britain consumes are imported. And 75 percent to 100 percent of these were from the European Union last year.

Because Britain is set to end its transition period for leaving the European Union on Dec. 31, importers of many goods, including medicines, had already been stockpiling. London and Brussels haven’t reached a trade deal yet, and so importers have sought to get goods into the country ahead of customs checks and, potentially, new tariffs, actions that have caused delays and congestion at larger container ports.

U.K. Virus Crisis

Passenger numbers on the Eurostar have plunged 95 percent since March.Credit…Suzie Howell for The New York Times

A bad year for Eurostar, the international high-speed train, turned worse on Monday.

The sleek and speedy mode of travel that ties London, Paris, Amsterdam and other cities is a shadow of itself, crippled by the pandemic:

  • Its ridership has all but vanished.

  • Its finances are threatened.

  • More than 90 percent of its employees have been furloughed, one of its union said.

Heightening the crisis, all service from London to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam was suspended on Monday for at least 48 hours as governments on the continent banned travelers from Britain, a precaution as health officials try to control a new variant of coronavirus sweeping across parts of England. Trains will continue operating from Paris to London, the company said.

The company’s woes reflect a struggle for survival playing out across the European train industry, as the pandemic continues to upend the business of transportation. Like Europe’s airlines, the railway sector is facing its worst crisis in modern history, reports Liz Alderman for The New York Times.

Ridership has slumped 70 to 90 percent amid lockdowns and social-distancing requirements, pushing the industry toward a staggering 22 billion euros in losses this year, around the same expected for European airlines, according to CER, a Brussels-based trade group representing passenger and freight train operators. Thousands of trains have been mothballed, and tens of thousands of workers are on government-subsidized furloughs.

“It’s a totally extraordinary situation,” said Libor Lochman, CER’s executive director. “There is no comparison for it, and it can and will lead to the bankruptcy of a number of companies, unless there is the political will to prevent it.”

With more than nine billion passengers and 1.6 billion tons of freight carried on tracks stretching from Spain to Sweden, Europe’s trains are as vital as planes for whisking people and goods across the continent.

But even after the pandemic, analysts say work-from-home practices, online socializing and the rise of internet shopping will have a lasting impact on rail travel of all types, leaving privately owned companies like Eurostar and state railways including DeutscheBahn in Germany and SNCF of France, Eurostar’s biggest shareholder, struggling to survive.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has extend a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures on home mortgages its insures against default, protecting many first-time home buyers.

The moratorium will now run through Feb. 28. It had been set to expire at the end of the month.

The foreclosure moratorium applies to mortgages backed by the Federal Home Administration, a division of the federal housing department. In recent years, F.H.A. guaranteed mortgages have become a major way for first-time buyers to acquire homes. The biggest underwriters of F.H.A. mortgages have been so-called nonbank lenders that are not affiliated with a major bank.

HUD is also similarly extending the deadline for cash-strapped homeowners to seek a reprieve from making full mortgage payments for up to six months.

The HUD extensions are just the latest efforts by government housing officials to help homeowners. Earlier this month, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, extended the foreclosure moratorium for home loans guaranteed against default by those two big mortgage finance firms through the end of January.

The stimulus legislation under negotiation in Congress is expected to contain measures to help renters as well.

The new coronavirus stimulus agreement being finalized by Congress would make a fresh attempt to help Black Americans and other minorities who have been especially affected by the pandemic.

According to summaries of the bill prepared by Democrats in the House of Representatives, $12 billion out of the $900 billion aid package will be set aside for Community Development Financial Institutions, known as C.D.F.I.s, which make loans and grants to people and communities frequently unable to get traditional banks to do business with them.

The new aid package would give $3 billion to the Treasury for the C.D.F.I. Fund, a pool of money that C.D.F.I.s can draw from to make loans. Another $9 billion would be set aside for the Treasury to make more targeted investments in C.D.F.I.s and Minority Development Institutions, which also help distribute loans and grants in communities neglected by traditional banks.

These changes should help the kinds of minority-owned businesses that struggled to get help under earlier relief efforts. The Paycheck Protection Program, for example, relied heavily on the banking system to hand out forgivable loans to small businesses. But that put many Black business owners at an immediate disadvantage because they lacked lending relationships with traditional banks.

Research by social scientists in Utah and New Jersey has shown that Black business owners had a harder time getting Paycheck Protection Program aid compared with white business owners, and a survey by community advocates revealed that many minority-owned businesses did not get the help they asked for.

C.D.F.I.s, which are often nonprofits, became the go-to lenders for these business owners as they tried stay afloat during pandemic-induced lockdowns. But the Treasury Department was slow to allow many C.D.F.I.s to participate in the Paycheck Protection Program, and Congress set aside only a tiny portion of the initial aid package specifically for them. Only later, with $10 billion apportioned to C.D.F.I.s in late May, as well as grants from big banks like Goldman Sachs, did many C.D.F.I.s have the capacity needed to help minority communities.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Capitol on Monday. After months of gridlock and debate, the House and Senate are expected to approve the spending measures on Monday.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

After congressional leaders struck a long-sought agreement on a $900 billion pandemic relief package, lawmakers in both chambers on Monday will race to finalize legislative text and send the measure to President Trump’s desk before government funding lapses.

An agreement in principle was reached late Sunday afternoon, hours before a midnight deadline to avoid a government shutdown. With additional time needed to transform their agreement into legislative text, both chambers had to approve a one-day stopgap spending bill, giving them an additional 24 hours to finalize the deal.

Lawmakers will have just a few hours to review the $2.3 trillion in relief legislation and a catchall omnibus to keep the government funded for the remainder of the fiscal year. But the process of compiling the behemoth package was already running into issues, according to aides familiar with the process, with a corrupt computer file in the education portion of the package delaying attempts to merge and upload the pieces of legislation.

But after months of gridlock and debate, both chambers are expected to approve the spending measures on Monday and send them to the president for his approval.

While the deal needs Mr. Trump’s signature, it bears, in part, the imprint of the man who is about to succeed him. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. was not directly involved in the talks but Democratic aides said they have been in close contact with Mr. Biden’s team — and while the former Delaware senator suggested the package was not nearly enough to address the crisis, he promoted the pact as the sort of bipartisan deal that could become routine on his watch.

“I am optimistic that we can meet this moment, together,” he said in a statement released late Sunday. “My message to everyone out there struggling right now: Help is on the way.”

The magnitude of the challenge facing Mr. Biden was revealed in those two sentences.

He is eager to rush billions more in aid to localities and those hit hardest by the pandemic — aligning him with party progressives — but he also needs to gain leverage over Senate Republicans in future negotiations by convincing some Trump supporters he is willing to work with them.

The $900 billion agreement is set to provide $600 stimulus payments to millions of American adults earning up to $75,000. It would revive lapsed supplemental federal unemployment benefits at $300 a week for 11 weeks — setting both at half the amount provided by the first pandemic relief package in March.

The final proposal will also include $69 billion for the distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine and more than $22 billion for states to conduct testing, tracing and coronavirus mitigation programs.

The agreement is also expected to:

  • Continue and expand benefits for gig workers and freelancers, and extend federal payments for people whose regular benefits have expired.

  • Provide more than $284 billion for businesses and revive the Paycheck Protection Program, a popular federal loan program for small businesses that lapsed over the summer.

  • Expand eligibility under that program for nonprofit organizations, local newspapers and radio and TV broadcasters and allocate $15 billion for performance venues, independent movie theaters and other cultural institutions devastated by the restrictions imposed to stop the spread of the virus.

  • Provide $82 billion for colleges and schools, $13 billion in increased nutrition assistance, $7 billion for broadband access and $25 billion in rental assistance.

  • Extend an eviction moratorium set to expire at the end of the year.

  • Ban surprise medical bills that come when patients unexpectedly receive care from an out-of-network health provider. Instead of sending those charges to patients, hospitals and doctors will now need to work with health insurers to settle the bills.

Alan Bergman, left, is now chairman of the movie division, while Alan Horn will be chief creative officer.Credit…Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

Disney on Monday cleared up a lingering question at its movie division: Alan Bergman, 54, was named chairman, succeeding Alan F. Horn, 77, a venerable figure in Hollywood who has led Walt Disney Studios since 2012. Mr. Horn will continue to serve as chief creative officer.

“It has been an honor to lead the Walt Disney Studios over the past eight-plus years,” Mr. Horn said in a statement. “The time feels right to shift my focus solely to our enormous creative slate.” This month, Disney said the movie division would dramatically increase its output to supply Disney+, the company’s year-old streaming service, which has soared in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Bergman joined Walt Disney Studios in 1996 and rose through the business affairs ranks, overseeing finance, technology, legal affairs and human resources. Most recently he served as co-chairman of the division, which includes Pixar, 20th Century Studios, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Blue Sky Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Walt Disney Animation, Disney live-action movies and Disney’s live stage shows. The heads of those units will report jointly to Mr. Bergman and Mr. Horn, Disney said. Mr. Bergman and Mr. Horn will report to Bob Chapek, Disney’s chief executive.

“With this new structure, we are ensuring a vital continuity of leadership,” Mr. Chapek said in a statement.

A spokesman declined to say how long Mr. Horn would serve in his role. The structure is reminiscent of how Disney recently handled succession at its highest level, announcing in February that Robert A. Iger would step down as chief executive to become executive chairman and focus on the company’s creative endeavors. Mr. Iger said he would exit entirely in late 2021, when his contract expires.

Under Mr. Horn’s leadership, Disney became Hollywood’s dominant movie company, by far. Last year, Disney controlled roughly 40 percent of the domestic box office, and six of its releases took in more than $1 billion worldwide. Mr. Horn was formerly the top film executive at Warner Bros., where he oversaw the eight-film “Harry Potter” series and Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy. Before that, he co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment, where movies included “When Harry Met Sally” and “A Few Good Men.”

Catch up

  • European regulators gave the green light to a merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA, the maker of Peugeot, Citroën and Opel cars, paving the way for shareholders of the two companies to vote on the deal at a special meeting on Jan. 4. The European Commission said the transaction can go ahead, but with conditions. To preserve competition in the market for commercial vehicles, PSA must continue to allow Toyota to build vans and light trucks at its factories in Europe, and PSA and FCA must share specialized tools so that outside firms can do repairs.

  • The Federal Reserve said on Friday that the financial system’s biggest banks had the wherewithal to withstand a severe economic shock from the pandemic, and that they would be able to return more money to shareholders early next year as long as they showed that they were profitable. In June, the Fed put temporary caps on shareholder payouts by the nation’s biggest banks. Minutes after the regulator’s announcement on Friday, JPMorgan Chase said it would buy back $30 billion of its shares during the first three months of 2021.

  • In a novel case, federal prosecutors on Friday brought criminal charges against an executive at Zoom, the videoconferencing company, accusing him of engaging in a conspiracy to disrupt and censor video meetings commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre. He is accused of working with others to log into the video meetings under aliases using profile pictures that related to terrorism or child pornography. Afterward, Mr. Jin would report the meetings for violating terms of service, prosecutors said.