Stocks have been supported over the last two sessions by cautious optimism that a "phase one" trade deal between the U.S. and China can be inked before another round of U.S. tariff hikes on Chinese goods are implemented on December 15. Today's strong rally is not attributable to trade headlines, however, but due to strong domestic economic data, mainly the blowout monthly jobs report.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., non-farm payrolls surged 266,000 in November, sharply beating expectations. The unemployment rate slipped back to 3.5% and average hourly earnings rose 0.2% month-over-month and 3.1% year-over-year in November. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index jumped 2.4 points to 99.2 in the preliminary December print, which also beat expectations. Wholesale inventories edged up 0.1%, while sales fell 0.7% in October.
TOP NEWS: Uber (UBER) released a safety report with data related to reports of the "most critical safety incidents" on its platform, calling it "the first comprehensive publication of its kind to be issued by a company." Within the report, Uber said that "fatal physical assault" was reported to occur in about 1 in every 122M U.S. trips in 2017 and 2018. In terms of sexual assault data, the company reported that in 2017 and 2018 combined, "non-consensual touching of a sexual body part" was reported to occur in about 1 in every 800,000 trips and "non-consensual kissing of a sexual body part" was reported to occur in 1 in every 3M completed U.S. trips. Overall, the company claimed in the report that the "vast majority," or 99.9%, of Uber trips end without any safety-related issue. Following last night's release of the report, Uber shares are down 2% near noon.
Shares of Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN) are up 5% in midday trading after the company disclosed this morning that it had "recently engaged in good faith with Elliott Advisors Limited, an affiliate of Elliott Management." The activist investing firm recommended that the drugmaker "immediately launch a proactive sale process," but Alexion said its board of directors had "unanimously decided that conducting a proactive sale process would not be in the best interest of shareholders and the patients we serve at this time."
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Trade Desk (TTD), which rose 4% after Needham analyst Laura Martin upgraded the stock to Buy from Hold with a $325 price target. Also higher were Big Lots (BIG) and Ulta Beauty (ULTA), which gained a respective 26% and 13% after reporting quarterly results.
Among the notable losers was Ciena (CIEN), which slid 3.5% after UBS analyst Tejas Venkatesh downgraded shares to Sell from Neutral with a price target of $31, down from $43. Also lower were PagerDuty (PD), Yext (YEXT), and Zoom Video (ZM), which fell 11%, 16%, and 10%, respectively, after reporting quarterly results.
INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was up 332.47, or 1.20%, to 28,010.26, the Nasdaq was up 82.30, or 0.96%, to 8,653.00, and the S&P 500 was up 31.43, or 1.01%, to 3,148.86.
