📈 S&P near all-time high

☕️ Good morning.

The Fast Five → S&P 500 inches closer to all-time high, Apple resumes watch sales after appeals court lifts ban, the late-night email sent to Tim Cook that started Apple watch saga, Maersk reroutes dozens of vessels via Suez Canal, and SPAC mania’s ugly end yields $46B in investor losses…

Your 5-minute briefing for Thursday:

BEFORE THE OPEN

MARKETS

• Stocks close higher with S&P 500 edging closer to record levels.

• Dow reaches a new closing high.

• S&P 500 nears its January 2022 closing record, enjoying an eight-week winning streak.

• 2023 marks strong gains: Dow up 13%, S&P 500 up 24%, and Nasdaq up 44%, its best year since 2003.

• "Santa rally" in effect, historically averaging a 1.3% gain during this period.

• Caution on over-optimism and potential disappointment if Fed delays rate cuts.

• Market frothiness seen, 90% of S&P 500 stocks above 50-day moving average.

• Overexcitement in bullish sentiment data raises concerns of unexpected setbacks.

EARNINGS

The earnings calendar is bare between Christmas and New Year's, picking back up the first week of January with Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) among the handful of names reporting.

In the following week (January 8-12), major banks will take the spotlight as the fourth-quarter earnings season begins. Stay tuned for our earnings outlook in next week's briefing.

• Full calendar here

NEWS BRIEFING

S&P 500 Inches Closer to All-Time High

The Late-Night Email to Tim Cook That Set the Apple Watch Saga in Motion

• New York Times sues Microsoft and OpenAI for copyright infringement (link)

• Apple resumes sale of watches after appeals court lifts US ban (link)

• Global bond ‘carnival’ sets stage for best two months on record (link)

• GM sues San Francisco, seeking $121M in back taxes, penalties (link)

• Maersk schedules dozens of vessels to travel via Suez Canal (link)

• Goldman, Morgan Stanley expect China’s housing slump to worsen (link)

• SPAC mania’s ugly end yields $46 billion of investor losses (link)

• UK economy set to escape hard landing in boost for Rishi Sunak (link)

• Generative AI’s breakout year produced hefty profits for Nvidia and lofty experiments for others (link)

• The dominant dollar faces a backlash in the oil market (link)

• Russian petroleum exports decline as diesel, naphtha flows ease (link)

• US labor market seen cooling in 2024, regional Fed surveys show (link)

• Tesla plans revamp of smash hit Model Y from China plant (link)

• The pandemic’s E-commerce stars are coping (link)

• It’s a ‘massive student debt strike’ activist says, as millions of borrowers still aren’t making payment (link)

• Bus stations across America are closing (link)

• Jacques Delors, Euro architect as leader of EU, dies at 98 (link)

CRYPTO

• MicroStrategy, which is run by Bitcoin advocate Michael Saylor, acquired $616M of Bitcoin; its crypto holdings now exceed $8B (link)

• Bullish bets on Bitcoin by institutional investors reached an all-time high on the CME (link)

BULLISH BITES

⚖️ Balancing act: These 5 charts show how life got pricier, but also cheaper, in 2023.

🦾 Robo-labor: BotBuilt wants to lower the cost of homebuilding with robots.

👎 Haters: 49% of Americans dislike tech billionaires, but still want to be like them—here’s why…

💸 It adds up: Beware AI’s hidden costs before they bankrupt innovation.

FEATURED TRADES

$MU date with $100 soon

Micron Technology, Inc. is a leading global provider of semiconductor solutions. Through its worldwide operations, Micron manufactures and markets a full range of memory and storage products including DRAM, NAND, and NOR flash memory.

Ticker: MU | Price: $86.44 | Price Target: 100 (+16%) | Timeframe: N/A

⚡️ Semiconductor | 🏭 Manufacturing | 📈 Bullish Idea

Read the full article here. Read time: 2 min

DAILY SHARES

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