Early Look

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

U.S. futures are generally flattish/to mixed after rising on Monday, exhibiting some caution ahead of economic data releases later this morning including the monthly JOLTs job openings and ISM Services data. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note has risen since early December and is trading at 4.63%, near its highest level since May 2024. U.S. stocks ended just short of one-week highs on Monday after President-elect Donald Trump’s refuted a Washington Post report that his team was exploring less aggressive tariff policies. Tech stocks led gains on Monday on resumed enthusiasm around artificial intelligence heading into this weeks CES trade show. In Asian markets, The Nikkei Index surged 776 points to 40,083, the Shanghai Index gained 22 points to 3,229, and the Hang Seng Index fell -240 points to 19,447. In Europe, the German DAX is up 69 points to 20,285, while the FTSE 100 is down -17 points to 8,231. Some early morning movers include NVDA up about 2% after unveiling a new chip, MU rising on other NVDA collaboration chip headlines at CES, AAPL and TSLA both slipping after cautious analyst comments on both.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped -25.57 points, or 0.06%, to 42,706.56.
• The Nasdaq Composite gained 243.30 points, or 1.24%, to 19,864.98.
• The Russell 2000 Index declined -1.81 points, or 0.08% to 2,266.66

• 8:00 AM ET                  Fed’s Barkin Speaks to Raleigh Chamber
• 8:30 AM ET                  International Trade for November…est. (-$78.0B)
• 8:55 AM ET                  Johnson/Redbook Weekly Sales
• 10:00 AM ET ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI for December…est. 53.3 (prior 52.1)
• 10:00 AM ET JOLTS Job Openings for November…est. 7.70M (prior 7.744M)
• 1:00 PM ET U.S. Treasury to sell $39B in 10-year notes
• 4:30 PM ET API Weekly Inventory Data

• Earnings After the Close: AIR AZZ CALM KRUS SLP

• Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2025), 1/7-1/10, in Las Vegas, NV
• Goldman Sachs Energy, CleanTech & Utilities Conference, 1/7-1/8, in Miami, FL
• RBC Capital Canadian Bank CEO Conference, 1/7 in Toronto, CA

• China’s central bank expanded its gold reserves for a second month in December, signaling renewed appetite after temporarily pausing purchases last year as prices soared. Bullion held by the People’s Bank of China rose to 73.29 million fine troy ounces in December, from 72.96 million in the previous month – Bloomberg.

• Tesla (TSLA) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Bank America while raising its tgt to $490 from $400 saying since their upgrade in April of 2024, news flow and investor sentiment have shifted more positively and catalysts around future growth drivers have been more fully recognized.
• Ulta Beauty (ULTA) said Dave Kimbell to retire as Ulta Beauty CEO and Kecia Steelman appointed President and CEO of Ulta Beauty; company says had stronger-than-expected performance during holiday season; outlook Q4 operating margin will be above high-end of previous expected range of 11.6% to 12.4% of sales.
• The AZEK Company Inc. (AZEK) announced that Peter Clifford is resigning from his positions as Senior Vice President, Chief Operations Officer and Chief Financial Officer to pursue another opportunity with a private company outside of the building products industry.

• GFL Environment (GFL) announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with funds managed by affiliates of Apollo (APO) and BC Partners for the sale of its Environmental Services business for an enterprise value of $8.0B. GFL will retain a $1.7 billion equity interest in the Environmental Services business and expects to realize cash proceeds from the Transaction of approximately $6.2 billion net of the retained equity and taxes.
• RPM (RPM) Q2 adjusted EPS $1.39 vs. est. $1.34; Q2 revs $1.85B vs. est. $1.79B; Construction Products Group net sales $690.1M, +4.3% y/y, Performance Coatings Group net sales $380.1M, +1.4% y/y, and Specialty Products Group net sales $184.9M, +4.4% y/y; backs FY25 sales view up low-single-digit percentage range vs. last year.
• Southwest Airlines (LUV) said it had entered into a deal to sell and leaseback 36 of its Boeing (BA) 737-800 aircraft from Babcock & Brown Aircraft Management. The airline completed the sale and leaseback of 35 aircraft in late December and received proceeds of $871 million from them.

• Acelyrin, Inc. (SLRN) announces additional phase 2 data and phase 3 program design for lonigutamab in thyroid eye disease; phase 3 program for lonigutamab expected to start in Q1 2025.
• Arcturus Therapeutics (ARCT) announces initiation of dosing in phase 2 multiple ascending dose studies for cystic fibrosis and ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency; phase 2 interim data for both MRNA therapeutic programs on track for first half of 2025.
• Denali Therapeutics (DNLI) announces topline results for regimen G evaluating EIF2B agonist DNL343 in the phase 2/3 Healey ALS platform trial; said study did not meet primary endpoint of slowing disease progression and said key secondary endpoints not statistically different at week 24.
• Olema Pharmaceuticals Inc (OLMA) files for mixed shelf of up to $200M.
• Unpaid medical bills would be banned from being included on Americans’ credit reports under a new rule the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that it had finalized on Tuesday.

• Aurora Innovation (AUR) shares jump 50% as the self-driving technology company partners with Continental and Nvidia (NVDA) to deploy driverless trucks at scale; Nvidia’s DRIVE Thor and DriveOS will be integrated into the Aurora Driver, an autonomous driving system that Continental plans to mass manufacture in 2027.
• Getty Images (GETY) and Shutterstock (SSTK) entered into a definitive merger agreement to combine in a merger of equals transaction, creating a visual content company. The combined company, which would have an enterprise value of approximately $3.7B, will be named Getty Images Holdings, Inc and will continue to trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “GETY”.
• Meta (META) announced that Dana White, John Elkann and Charlie Songhurst have been elected to the company’s board of directors.
• Micron (MU) shares rose early after NVIDIA (NVDA) CEO said at CES last night that Micron was providing memory for GeForce RTX 50 Blackwell family of gaming chips.
• Nvidia’s (NVDA) unveiled AI-enabled technology to train robot and self-driving cars, gaming chips, and its first desktop computer at CES; the company added that Japan’s Toyota’s Motor (TM) will use its Orin chips and automotive operating system for advance driver assistance; Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sees automotive hardware and software revenue of $5 bln in FY 2026, up from an expected $4 bln in FY 2025.
• NXP Semiconductor (NXPI) said it plans to acquire TTTech Auto, an Austrian company specializing in safety software for autonomous vehicles, in an all-cash transaction valued at $625 million.