Executive Summary: There was no follow-through yesterday from Monday’s strength. Market players are waiting to see how CPI and PPI fare tomorrow and Friday. Expect a narrow range today. Expect NY Fed President to reiterate higher rates staying higher when he talks at 3:15.

• Federal Reserve New York President John Williams 3:15 p.m. EST
• The latest NYSE and NASDAQ Short Interest Data for the period of December 13th through December 27th is due out after the close. During this period, the S&P 500 rose 1.58%.

• IPOs Priced or News: None of note.
• New SPACs launched/News:
  • Integrated Rail and Resources Acquisition Corp. (IRRX) Announces Extension.
• Secondaries Priced:
  • NTST: Prices offering of 9.6 million shares of common stock at $18.00 per share.
• Notes Priced of note:
  • STZ: Prices Offering of Senior Notes.
• Common Stock filings/Notes:
  • NTST: Announces launch of public offering of 8 million common stocks. (WFC and BAC Bookmanager)
  • SDIG: Form S-3 Filed .. 4,600,000 Shares.
  • TLRY: Form 8K.. entered into an assignment and assumption agreement
• Direct Offering: None of note.
• Selling Shareholders of note:
  • AEVA: Files for 51,802,299 shares of common stock by selling shareholders.
• Private Placement of Public Entity (PIPE): None of note.
• Mixed Shelf Offerings:
  • CNET: Filed Form S-3.. $75,000,000 Mixed Shelf.
• Debt/Credit Filing and Notes: None of note.
• Tender Offer: None of note.
• Convertible Offering & Notes Filed:
  • OPK: Closing of Private Offering of $230 Million Convertible Senior Notes Due 2029 including Full Exercise of Initial Purchaser’s Option to Purchase Additional Notes.

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: 
  • XCUR: +58% US Patent talk on name
  • ICCT: +29% Strategic Acquisition of Verifi Dental
  • SGH: +10% Earnings
  • PSMT: +9% Earnings
  • WDFC: +7% Earnings
  • ISRG: +5.5% Prelim Rev guidance higher
  • AEHR: -15% Lowered Guidance
• News Items After the Close:
  • Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) to Buy Juniper Networks (JNPR) for $14 Billion in Expansion Bet. (Bloomberg)
  • Amazon’s (AMZN) Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff. (Bloomberg)
  • Boeing (BA) CEO Says Company Needs to Acknowledge ‘Our Mistake’. (WSJ)
  • Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) stock rallies on sales forecast, as demand for robot surgeons rises. (MarketWatch)
  • JPMORGAN: “.. renewed increases in global shipping costs may actually add to consumer price inflation over the next several months .. Such an outcome would reinforce our expectation for progress on reducing global core #CPI inflation to stall this year.” (Carl Q. CNBC)
  • Premium users can now post jobs on X! – (X News Daily)
  • SEC Says Hack Led to False Post about Bitcoin on X (Twitter). (WSJ)
    • Crypto-related stocks starting to bounce back after SEC Chairperson Gary Gensler tweeting that the Bitcoin Spot ETFs were not approved yet
      • SDIG -2.2%, MARA -2.3%, BITO -1.9%, HUT -1.9%, HIVE -1.7%, COIN -1.5%, RIOT -1.5%, MSTR -1.5%, CLSK -1.3%

• Exchange/Listing/Company Reorg and Personnel News:
  • APA Corp. (APA) promotes Stephen J. Riney from VP and CFO to President and CFO.
  • Match Group (MTCH) promotes Faye Iosotaluno to CEO of the Tinder banner, effective immediately; will report to Match Group CEO Bernard Kim.
  • Mr. Cooper Group (COOP) announces appointment of Mike Weinbach as President.
  • Sonos (SONO) announces that Saori Casey will join as CFO, effective Jan 22; current CFO and CLO Eddie Lazarus to assume Chief Legal and Strategy Officer role.
  • Starbucks (SBUX) Elects Daniel Servitje, Neal Mohan and Mike Sievert to its Board of Directors.
  • Terreno Realty (TRNO) promotes John Meyer to COO.
  • VNET Group (VNET) announces that its board of directors appointed Mr. Jianbiao Zhu as an executive director to serve as the co-chairman of the Board alongside Mr. Josh Sheng Chen.
  • Waldencast plc (WALD) Announces Receipt of Anticipated Nasdaq Delinquency Notice.
• Buyback Announcements or News: 
  • Lennar (LEN) share repurchase authorization by $5 billion. (see Dividends too)
  • Preferred Bank (PFBC) approves share repurchase plan of another $50 million of the Bank’s common stock.
• Stock Splits or News:
  • Reverse split stocks for today:
    • MESO 1/2
    • BETS 1/1000
• Dividends Announcements or News: 
  • Lennar (LEN) increases quarterly cash dividend to $0.50/share from $0.375 per share.
  • ORCL trading ex-dividend today.
• Insider Sales Of Note: None of note.
• Monthly Assets Under Management: CNS $83.1 billion +$4.4 billion)

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

The Nasdaq Composite climbed for a third consecutive day as shares of Nvidia (NVDA), Amazon.com (AMZN) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL).  The tech-heavy index added 0.1%, leaving it down 1% in 2024 after starting the year with declines. The S&P 500 slipped 0.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%, or about 158 points.  Stocks had a relatively quiet session Tuesday after a day of solid gains to start the week. All three indexes are modestly lower so far this year after ending 2023 with double-digit gains. The S&P 500 advanced 24% last year, the Dow Industrials gained 14% and the Nasdaq surged 43%.  (WSJ – edited by QPI)

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

• Gap Up: ETWO +15%, PSMT +10%, SGH +9%, PIII +9%, WDFC +6%, ALC +5%, ISRG +5%, AEVA +4% of note.
• Gap Down: AEHR -17% 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.

• What You Need To Know To Start Your Day. (Bloomberg)
• 5 Things To Know Before the Stock Market Opens on Wednesday. (CNBC)
• Bloomberg Lead Story:  SEC Says X Account was Hacked to Falsely State Bitcoin ETF Approved. (Bloomberg)
• Bloomberg  Most Shared Story:  Bottled Water contains more plastic particles than previously thought, second day as lead story. (Bloomberg)
• Stocks trade in a narrow range before inflation data; Markets Wrap. (Bloomberg)
• Mortgage demand jumps 10%  despite rate rise. (CNBC)
• Regeneron (RGEN) CEO says AI is not the next big thing for Biotech, rather it is gene therapy. (CNBC)
• Bloomberg Odd Lots: Lael Brainard says “Work not done” on lowering prices for consumers. (Podcast)
• NPR Marketplace: 2024 Election, U.S. versus itself. (Podcast)
• NY Times Daily:  Trump’s Case for Total Immunity. (Podcast)
• BBC Global News Daily Podcast:  2023 hottest year on record. (Podcast)
• Wealthion:   Marc Faber: Economic Winter is Coming. (Podcast)

Moving Average Update:  Score inches down to 82% from 88%.

Geopolitical: 

M&A Activity and News: 

• Core & Main (CNM) signs agreement to acquire Eastern Supply.
• Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) will acquire Juniper (JNPR) in an all-cash transaction for $40.00 per share, representing an equity value of approximately $14 billion.
• iCoreConnect Inc. (ICCT) Announces Strategic Acquisition of Verifi Dental.
• Intel (INTC) announces agreement to acquire Silicon Mobility SAS for advanced EV energy management and new AI-enhanced family of software-defined vehicle SoCs.

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: