All three major indexes are inching lower before the bell
Wall Street is quiet this morning ahead of Thursday's inflation data, with futures on all three major indexes trading just below fair value. Oil prices are flat as well, though Bitcoin's (BTC) decline is weighing on crypto stocks. An unauthorized social media post from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it had approved Bitcoin ETF's for trading was proved false. Elsewhere, home prices rose 5.2% year-over-year in November, per a new report from CoreLogic.
Continue reading for more on today's market, including:
- These stocks have contrarian potential, says Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White.
- Biotech stock flashing historically bearish signal.
- Plus, LEN's latest buyback; BE's bull notes; and TGTX soars on upbeat revenue.
5 Things You Need to Know Today
- The Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE) saw more than 1.1 million call contracts and 689,549 put contracts traded on Tuesday. The single-session equity put/call ratio rose to 0.61, and the 21-day moving average fell to 0.69.
- Lennar Corp (NYSE:LEN) stock is up 1.4% premarket, after the homebuilding company increased its annual dividend by 50 cents to $2.00 per share and announced a repurchasing of $5 billion shares. Should these gains hold, LEN will test recent pressure at the $150 level. The equity has added 55.5% year-over-year.
- Bloom Energy Corp (NYSE:BE) stock is sporting a 3.2% premarket lead, after Baird upgraded the hydrogen producer to "outperform." Jefferies also threw in a price-target hike to $29 from $24. BE is down 33% year over year.
- Biotech stock TG Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:TGTX) is up 12.5% before the bell, after the company posted better-than-expected preliminary fourth-quarter and 2023 net revenue. On track for its eighth weekly gain in the last nine weeks and having finally just recovered from its early-August bear gap, TGTX is up 80.3% since last January.
- Pivotal inflation data looms tomorrow, as well as bank earnings.
Nikkei Marks Highest Close in 34 Years
While markets in Asia were mostly lower Wednesday, Japan’s Nikkei brushed off the negative sentiment and jumped 2% to close above the 34,000 level for the first time since March 1990. South Korea’s Kospi led the region’s laggards with a 0.8% drop, following news that the country’s unemployment rate hit a 23-month high in December. Elsewhere, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng erased 0.6%, while China’s Shanghai Composite shed 0.5%.
European stock are lower this afternoon, with the construction and financial services sectors dragging the region’s major bourses lower. At last check, Germany’s DAX is just below breakeven, France’s CAC 40 is down 0.1%, and London’s FTSE 100 is off by 0.3%.