• IPOs Priced or News: None of note.
• New SPACs launched:
  • Athena Technology Acquisition Corp. (ATHN) announces Stockholder Approval of Business Combination with Heliogen, Inc.  It will trade under the ticker HLGN and begin trading on the NYSE December 31st.
• Secondaries Priced:
  • Applied UV (AUVI) Announces Pricing of $8.0 Million Underwritten Public Offering.
• Notes Priced of note: None of note.
• Common Stock filings/Notes:
  • VCSA: Filed Form S-1.. 305,127,529 shares of Class A Common Stock.
• Pricing of Over-Allotment: None of note.
• Direct Offering: None of note.
• Selling Shareholders of note:
  • PL: Filed Form S-1.. Up to 185,281,772 Shares of Class A Common Stock.
• Private Placement of Public Entity (PIPE): None of note.
• Mixed Shelf Offerings: None of note.
• Convertible Offering & Notes Filed: None of note. 
• Note Offerings Filed: None of note.

Capital Raise Summary From The TradeXchange, bringing traders and investors real time news and Squawk Box, and other sources.

News After The Close:

• After Hours: 
  • Trading Up: CLAX +7%
  • Trading Down: MTRX -9%, CALM -7%

• News Items After The Close:
  • Delta (DAL), Alaska (ALK) cancel hundreds of flights owing to bad weather, Omicron cases.(Reuters)
  • Quidel’s (QDEL) Antigen Tests Detect the Omicron Variant.
  • Radian Group Home Index sees U.S. home prices rise 13.4%.
  • Marathon Digital (MARA) signs deal with Bitmain to buy 78,000 miners for $879 million.
• Exchange/Listing/Company Reorg and Personnel News: 
  • Calix (CALX) Set to Join S&P MidCap 400, replacing CIT Group (CIT); Douglas Elliman (DOUG) to Join S&P SmallCap 600 replacing Matrix Service (MTRX). (PR Newswire)
  • SEI (SEIC)Announces Leadership Change.
  • Verra Mobility (VRRM) Announces Patrick Byrne Appointed Chairman of Board of Directors.
• Buyback Announcements:
  • JD.com (JD) upsizes from $2.0 billion to $3.0 billion and extends share repurchase program to March 17, 2024.
  • Nutriband Inc. (NTRB) Announces $1 Million Share Repurchase Authorization.
  • Victoria’s Secret & Co. (VSCO) Announces $250 Million Accelerated Share Repurchase Program.
• Stock Splits: None of note.
• Dividends Announcements: None of note.

What’s Happening This Morning: Futures value reflects the change with fair value.

S&P 500 +3 Dow Jones Industrial Average +3 NASDAQ +29 Russell 2000 -0.90. Asia lower and Europe mixed. VIX Futures are at 20.46 from 20.80  yesterday morning. Gold, Silver and Copper lower. WTI Crude Oil and Brent Oil Futures lower. Natural Gas is higher. $ is higher vs Euro, higher vs Pound and higher vs Yen. US 10 year Treasury price is at $130.58 from $130.56  yesterday with yields at 1.498% from 1.486% yesterday morning. Bitcoin at $46,896 from $49,222  yesterday morning and -1.96%. As of 8:00 a.m. EST.

Tuesday’s Action – 12/28 Close:  

• Daily Positive Sectors: Utilities, Consumer Defensive, Real Estate of note.
• Daily Negative Sectors: Technology, Communication Services, Healthcare of note.
• One Month Winners: Basic Materials, Utilities, Real Estate of note.
• Three Month Winners: Real Estate, Basic Materials, Technology of note.
• Six Month Winners: Technology, Real Estate, Utilities of note.
• Twelve Month Winners: Energy, Real Estate, and Technology of note.
• Year to Date Winners: Energy, Technology, and Real Estate  of note.

Intraday highs and positive Santa momentum faded from the opening.  Indexes mostly closed lower.  The Russell 2000 closed down 0.66%.  Commodities were mixed with Oil up 0.28% via the USO and Natural Gas (UNG) down 0.77%.  Updated 12/28 close.

Upcoming Earnings Of Note: (sorted by market cap, highest to lowest with most visible names)

Gap Ups & Down In Early Pre-Market:

• • Gap Up: CALX +8%, ENS +3%
  • Gap Down: MTRX -8%, CALM -7%

Insider Action: NOVA sees Insider buying with dumb short selling and KFS has smart short sellers with insider buys. 12/28 close

Rags & Mags: Highlighted Stories may be clicked through to the original story.  Repeated stories from prior days never listed, i.e. “rehashed news”.

• Stocks Making the Biggest Moves: CALM, TSLA, BABA, DIDI, AKAM, VSCO (CNBC)
• Covid cases rocket to 441,278 cases from 288,579. Hospitalizations are at 63,106 from 60,907.
• Brazil court tells Petrobras (PBR) cannot increase natural gas prices further. (Reuters)
• National Security Police, i.e. Chinese Police, in Hong Kong raided another pro-democracy news outlet, Stand News. (CNN)
• China locks down Samsung (SSNLF) plants in Xian due to spread of COvid-19. (South China Morning Press)
• Omicron causing milder illness in children, similar to adults. (NYT)
• Carnival (CCL) keeps to schedule despite Omicron. (Reuters)
• Media companies to spend $115 billion on new streaming content. (FT)
• Walt Disney (DIS) reopens Typhoon Lagoon after almost two years. (AP)
• Oramed (ORMP) Subsidiary Oravax Medical Signs Cooperation and Purchase Agreement for an Initial Pre-Purchase of 10 Million Doses of Oral COVID-19 Vaccines with Tan Thanh Holdings to Commercialize in Southeast Asia.
• China’s Didi (DIDI) plans Hong Kong ‘listing by introduction’, picks banks. – sources
• Alibaba (BABA) is weighing options for its stake in social media Weibo and is in talks with a state-owned firm for a potential deal. The discussions between Alibaba and Shanghai Media Group could lead to the latter purchasing all of Alibaba’s roughly 30% stake in Weibo.
• Apple, Inc. (AAPL) Resumption Of Ops At Foxconn’s Southern India Plant Could Be Delayed To Jan 3. – Govt Source
• Hertz (HTZ) Suggests ‘First Wave Of National Rollout’ Of Tesla (TSLA) EVs On Track, Prepares To Expand To ‘New Markets’.

Moving Average Update:

• Score ticks down to 93% from 96%. The Russell 2000 needs to clear its 50 and 200 Day Moving Average for all to be well. Updated 12/28 close.

Geopolitical: