Executive Summary: Stocks are attempting to rally as yields on the 10-year flirt with 4.00%. Jobs data from ADP will decide whether that happens or not today. Remember tomorrow is Job’s Friday.

• December ADP Employment Report is due out at 8:15 a.m. EST and is expected to rise to 114,000 from 103,000.

• IPOs Priced or News: None of note.
• New SPACs launched/News:
  • New Era Helium Corp. to list on NASDAQ through merger with Roth CH Acquisition V Co. (ROCL).
• Secondaries Priced:
  • KROS: Prices offering of 3.5 million shares of common stock of $40.00 per share.
  • LBPH: Prices offering of 10.0 mln shares of common stock at $21.00 per share.
• Notes Priced of note:
  • CPT: Prices $400 Million 4.900% Senior Unsecured Notes Due 2034.
  • GLP: Pricing of Private Offering of Senior Notes.
• Common Stock filings/Notes:
  • CCCS: Announces proposed secondary offering of 20 million shares of common stock.
  • CLAR: Form 8K.. Clarus and Everest/Sapphire Acquisition, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, entered into a Purchase and Sale Agreement.
  • DYN: Commences $175 million stock offering. (MS, JPM, Jefferies and Stifel bookmanager)
  • GMM: Announces the Closing of $10 Million Follow-on Offering.
  • KROS: Announces proposed public offering of $120 million of common shares.
• Direct Offering:
  • FBIO: Announces Closing of $11 Million Registered Direct Offering Priced At-the-Market Under Nasdaq Rules.
• Selling Shareholders of note:
  • DINO: Entered into a stock purchase agreement with selling stockholder pursuant to the previously disclosed $1 billion share repurchase program.
  • VERI: Filed Form S-3.. 3,008,540 Shares of Common Stock offered by Selling Stockholders.
• Private Placement of Public Entity (PIPE): None of note.
• Mixed Shelf Offerings:
  • SATS: Filed Form S-3ASR.. Mixed Shelf.
• Debt/Credit Filing and Notes:
  • OPK: Announces Private Offering of Convertible Senior Notes Due 2029Proceeds to be used for privately negotiated repurchases of common stock and outstanding 4.50% Convertible Senior Notes due 2025.
• Tender Offer: None of note.
• Convertible Offering & Notes 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 Movers: 
  • AREN: +41% HECKMAN, PIERCE OFFER $4.50/SHR FOR A 45% IN ARENA: NYP
  • CALM: -8% Earnings
  • DYN: -7% Public Offering of Common Stock
  • ABBV: -2.2% CVS to Replace AbbVie’s Blockbuster Humira
• News Items After the Close:
  • SEC Could Begin Notifying Issuers Of Approval Of ETF Spot Bitcoin On Friday With Trading Beginning As Early As Next Week. (Foxbusiness)
  • TikTok Eyes $17.5 Billion Shopping Business on Amazon’s (AMZN) Turf .TikTok Shop seeks to significantly grow size of US business ByeDance’s video app is fast expanding beyond advertising. (Bloomberg)
  • Intel (INTC) appoints Justin Hotard as Exec. VP and GM of its Data Center and AI Group (DCAI). (MarketWatch)
  • Spirit Airlines (SAVE) completes series of sale-leaseback transactions with respect to 25 aircraft, resulting in repayment of approx $465 mln of indebtedness on those aircraft and net cash proceeds to co of $419 million.
  • L3Harris (LHX) awarded $479 million U.S. Special Operations Command contract.
  • V2X (VVX) wins $190M U.S. Army Contract to Enhance Warfighter Readiness in Middle East Operations.
  • Geospace Tech. (GEOS) inks $30 million contract with an international marine geophysical services provider for shallow water ocean bottom nodes known as Mariner.
  • Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Increases Internally Held Portfolio Weights In Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC), Atlassian Corp (TEAM), T-Mobile, Inc. (TMUS), and Reduces Position In Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) (note: price target for AMD raised to $170 from $140 at KeyBanc — Overweight rated).

Timely from a fundamental standpoint:

• Exchange/Listing/Company Reorg and Personnel News:
  • ADC Therapeutics (ADCT) Regains Compliance with NYSE Continued Listing Standards.
  • Alpine 4 Holdings (ALPP) Announces Receipt of Nasdaq Notice of Additional Staff Determination
  • Americold Realty Trust (COLD) CFO Marc Smernoff departing.
  • Burning Rock (BNR) Announces Receipt of Notification from NASDAQ.
  • Cognex (CGNX) CFO Paul Todgham to resign on March 15.
  • Foghorn Therapeutics’ (FHTX) CFO departing to pursue another opportunity.
  • Homology Medicines (FIXX) Receives NASDAQ Notification Regarding Minimum Bid Price Deficiency.
  • Regional Mgmt (RM) COO was terminated without cause.
  • Simulations Plus (SLP) announces leadership changes, including CFO assuming additional role of COO.
  • Sky Harbour (SKYH) announces that Will Whitesell has joined as COO.
  • Velo3D, Inc. (VLD) Receives Continued Listing Standards Notice from the NYSE.
  • Zymeworks (ZYME) announces additional leadership appointments; Jeffrey Smith named Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer.
• Buyback Announcements or News: 
  • loanDepot (LDI) amended master repurchase agreement: (i) change the name of the Buyer in the Existing MRA; (ii) change the facility from a syndicated facility to a single lender facility; (ii) extend the termination date to December 26, 2024; and (iii) change the maximum facility amount to $175 million.
• Stock Splits or News:
  • Reverse Splits stocks for today:  PRSO 1/40, ACON 1/16, JSPR 1/10
• Dividends Announcements or News:
  • Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) declares a quarterly dividend $0.25 per share, a reduction of 48% from the previous quarter.
• Insider Sales Of Note:
  • META: Mark Zuckerberg sold $428M worth of Meta stock at the end of 2023.
  • Palo Alto Networks (PANW) technology chief sells stock worth $10.4M.

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

Sector Action – (1/3/6/12/YTD Updated Weekly with Monday release):  

• Daily Positive Sectors: Energy of note.
• Daily Negative Sectors: Real Estate, Industrials, Consumer Cyclical, Basiic Materials, Technology of note.
• One Month Winners: Real Estate, Industrials, and Basic Materials of note.
• Three Month Winners: Technology, Real Estate, and Industrials of note.
• Six Month Winners: Communication Services, Financial, Technology, and Consumer Cyclical of note.
• Twelve Month Winners: Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Cyclicals and Industrials of note.
• Year to Date Winners:  Technology, Communication Services, and Consumer Cyclical of note.

The S&P 500 fell Wednesday, opening the new year with two consecutive days in the red.  The benchmark index fell 0.8%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.2% while the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.8%, or 285 points. Eight of the 11 sectors within the S&P 500 closed lower.  (WSJ – edited by QPI)

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

• Gap Up: CIFR +6%, IPHA +6%, RGP +5%, CPE +5%, PRCH +4%, CAN +4% of note.
• Gap Down: OPK -8%, CALM -6%, APA -5% of note.

Insider Action: No stock sees Insider buying with dumb short selling.  No stock sees Insider buying with smart short sellers.

Rags & Mags: Repeated stories from prior days never listed, i.e. “rehashed news”. Sorted by Global, U.S. and stock specific.

• Stocks making the biggest moves premarket: WBA, AAPL, CALM APA, YETI, LLY, MBLY  (CNBC)
• What You Need To Know To Start Your Day. (Bloomberg)
• 5 Things To Know Before the Stock Market Opens on Thursday. (CNBC)
• Bloomberg Lead Story: Middle East Tensions Rise on Iran Deadly Blast and U.S. Warnings. (Bloomberg)
• Bloomberg  Most Shared Story: TikTok eyes $17.5 billion shopping business on Amazon’s turf.   (Bloomberg)
• Stocks pause new year selloff; Oil extends rally: Market Wrap. (Bloomberg)
• Jeffrey Epstein documents are out. (USA Today)
• Trump Ballot Fight plunges Supreme Court into 2024 Election. (Bloomberg)
• Walgreens (WBA) beats on earnings but slashes dividend by almost 50%. (CNBC)
• Xerox (XRX) to cut 15% of its workforce. (CNBC)
• Bloomberg Odd Lots: Attacks in the Red Sea are reconfiguring trade, again. (Podcast)
• NPR Marketplace: Those jobs you are applying to? They may not be real. (Podcast)
• NY Times Daily: Why are so many more pedestrians dying in the U.S. (Podcast)
• BBC Global News Daily Podcast: Iran vows a harsh response to bombings. (Podcast)
• Wealthion: Hidden Market Traps of 2024. (Podcast)

Moving Average Update:  Score pulls back to 48% from 71%.

Geopolitical: 

M&A Activity and News: 

• APA Corporation (APA) to Acquire Callon Petroleum Company (CPE) in All-Stock Transaction.
• Crane (CR) to acquire Vian Enterprises, Inc. for approximately $103 million, financing the deal primary with proceeds from revolving credit facility.

Top Tier Sell-side Upgrades & Downgrades:

The recommendations listed below in this “Upgrade/Downgrade” section are compiled from what we believe are Tier I, II and III firms. Recommendations posted are taken from a variety of sources each day and we only post upgrades or significant initiations as well as downgrades to underweight or sell. The purpose of this posting is to make the reader aware of market-moving recommendations. None of these recommendations should be interpreted as actual recommendations from CAPIS or its employees.

Today’s Upgrades and Downgrades:

Previous Day’s Upgrades and Downgrades: