The major averages were lower at midday, but recovered to resume the market's advance that had been broken yesterday. The moves today on Wall Street were modest, though, as the market digests various cross-currents. Congress will vote this evening on a resolution that calls for Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th amendment, removing President Trump from office, but that effort is largely seen as a non-starter with which Pence will not comply. Meanwhile, lockdowns have returned in China as the nation grapples with the worst virus outbreak in months and the U.S. vaccine roll out pace has been slower than anticipated in several states.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., the NFIB small business optimism index dropped 5.4 points to 95.9 in December. The JOLTS report showed job openings dropped 105,000 to 6.53M in November.
TOP NEWS: Shares of Walmart (WMT) were 1% higher after the company announced last night plans to create a new fintech startup via a strategic partnership with fintech investment firm Ribbit Capital. The as-yet unnamed joint venture is "designed to develop and offer modern, innovative and affordable financial solutions," Walmart said.
General Motors (GM) advanced 6% after the legacy automaker announced a new unit, BrightDrop, that it said will offer "an ecosystem of electric first-to-last-mile products, software and services to empower delivery and logistics companies to move goods more efficiently." BrightDrop's first product to market, the EP1, will be a propulsion-assisted, electric pallet developed to easily move goods over short distances, while its second product to market will be the EV600, an electric light commercial van, GM said.
Shares of Zoom Video (ZM) rose 5.7% after the company announced that it has commenced an underwritten public offering of $1.5B of shares of its Class A common stock. Zoom Video also announced this morning that it has sold one million Zoom Phone seats shortly before it reached the two-year anniversary of the product's general availability.
Shares of Pfizer (PFE) were down 1.6% after the company issued FY21 guidance in conjunction with its presentation at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference. Pfizer also announced that, during the second half of 2020, it invested a total of $120M in four clinical-stage biotech companies as part of the Pfizer Breakthrough Growth Initiative.
In M&A news, STERIS (STE) announced an agreement to acquire Cantel Medical (CMD) through a U.S. subsidiary. STERIS will acquire Cantel in a cash and stock transaction valued at $84.66 per Cantel common share, based on STERIS's closing share price on January 11, in a deal that represents a total equity value of approximately $3.6B and a total enterprise value of approximately $4.6B, including Cantel's net debt and convertible notes.
Meanwhile, U.S. airline stocks were in focus after The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning to issue an order as soon as Tuesday to expand a prior order that requires proof of negative coronavirus tests for all airline passengers from the U.K. to extend to all international visitors. The CDC order is expected to go into effect January 26, according to the Journal.
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was FuboTV (FUBO), which rose over 34% after the company announced an agreement to acquire Vigtory and plans to launch a sportsbook in 2021. Also higher was Plug Power (PLUG), which gained 22% after it signed a memorandum of understanding with Renault (RNSDF) to launch a "transformational" joint venture in France and after the stock was initiated with a Buy rating at Truist.
Among the notable losers was Mimecast (MIME), which declined nearly14% after announcing in a post to its corporate blog that Microsoft (MSFT) recently informed the company that a Mimecast-issued certificate provided to certain customers to authenticate Mimecast Sync and Recover, Continuity Monitor, and IEP products to Microsoft 365 Exchange Web Services has been "compromised by a sophisticated threat actor." Also lower was Boston Scientific (BSX), which fell 3% after reporting preliminary Q4 and FY20 results below consensus.
INDEXES: The Dow rose 60.00, or 0.19%, to 31,068.69, the Nasdaq gained 36.00, or 0.28%, to 13,072.43, and the S&P 500 advanced 1.58, or 0.042%, to 3,801.19.
