US Markets Stock futures were flat overnight after rising during trading hours on Thursday following the release of positive CPI figures. - Markets are on track to see gains on the week, with the Nasdaq up 4.09%, the S&P up 2.26%, and the Dow up 1.66%.
- 8 of the 11 sectors in the S&P 500 rose on Thursday. Energy stocks led gains and consumer staples dragged down markets.
- CPI data showed that consumer prices rose 6.5% in the 12 months to December, down from 7.1% in November, which could prompt the Fed to slow down interest rate increases.
- The current 10 Year US Treasury yield is set at 3.54100%.
| Dow Jones | 33,973.01 | 0.80% | | S&P 500 | 3,969.61 | 1.28% | | Nasdaq | 10,931.67 | 1.76% | | Russell 2000 | 1,844.05 | 1.17% | *Stock Market data as of the last closing bell. Data received directly from the reference indexes through ICE Data Services. Do you not understand any of these figures? Check out our explainer.
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Inflation Insights U.S. Consumer Price Index data released on Thursday showed that the annual inflation in December was at 6.5%, down from 7.1% in November. - The figures were in line with investor expectations.
- Prices declined by 0.1% from November to December, the biggest month-to-month drop since April 2020.
- Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and fuel prices, fell to 5.7% year on year, from 6% in November.
- Gas prices dropped 9.4% from the previous month and 1.5% from a year earlier.
- Fuel oil prices were down 16.6% month over month.
- Food prices rose 0.3% month over month.
- Shelter costs increased by 0.8% from the previous month and are 7.5% higher than last year.
- Vehicle prices declined by 8.8% on an annual basis after spiking during the pandemic due to semiconductor shortages and manufacturing shutdowns.
- Airline fairs decreased by 3.1% from the previous month but are up 29.5% year over year.
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Major Stories - Apple said that Tim Cook will take a 40% pay cut. He will earn $49M in 2023. The cut comes after a vote showed that 64% of shareholders approved of his 2022 earnings package, down from an approval rate of 95% in 2020. This is despite Apple stock surging 1,212% since Cook became CEO, outperforming the S&P 500 by nearly 5x.
- Activist investor Nelson Peltz advocated for a Disney board seat during a TV interview on Thursday. He discussed the company's failures under Bob Iger and Bob Chapek, criticized their M&A strategy, including the Fox merger, and appealed to investors by pointing to Disney's decision not to pay dividends during the pandemic. Peltz seems ready to fight a proxy battle with management that could derail Disney, which just brought back Bob Iger to get the company's finances and spending back under control.
- JP Morgan has shut down Frank, a website for college financial aid that it purchased for $175M. The bank claims that it acquired the startup because its founders said they had 400,000 customers. However, 70% of the emails of those customers bounced back. The bank has sued Frank executives, saying they hired a data scientist to fabricate millions of fake accounts.
- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is threatening to sue the FTC over its proposal to ban all noncompete clauses for employees. The Senate has already proposed a similar ban. The Chamber claims that the FTC has no jurisdiction to make that type of regulation.
- Meta has sued Voyager Labs, a startup that Meta claims was creating fake accounts to scrape user data. This is becoming a trend, with Meta having already settled with two other startups in similar circumstances late last year and LinkedIn entering into a settlement with hiQ over similar data scraping allegations.
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Cryptocurrency The SEC has charged Genesis and Gemini with the sale of unregistered securities. - The SEC has been taking an aggressive approach to regulation since the collapse of FTX in November 2022.
- Genesis and Gemini had partnered on a product called Earn, which allowed those on the Gemini crypto exchange to get advertised yields of up to 8% using the lending services of Genesis.
- The SEC claims that Genesis was loaning Gemini users' crypto and then sending a portion of their profits back to Gemini, which would then deduct a fee and return the rest of the profits to the customers. Since the funds were being indirectly invested, the SEC argues that this scheme should have been registered as a security offering.
| Bitcoin | $18,834.60 | 8.00% | | Ethereum | $1,412.69 | 1.75% | | Litecoin | $85.80 | 2.06% | | Bitcoin Cash | $120.29 | 11.96% | *Exchange rates as of 7 am ET. Data from Morningstar Financial Research. To understand why we track these currencies and the differences between them, click here.
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European Markets Stocks in Europe rose on Thursday, closing at their highest price since April 2022. - The Stoxx 600 gained 0.7% on the day, with almost all sectors rising.
- Retail stocks led gains with a 2% increase, while healthcare stocks were the worst performing, down 0.1%.
- The FTSE 100 in the U.K. gained 0.9% to reach its highest point since 2018.
| Euro STOXX 50 | 4,126.68 | 0.66% | | UK (FTSE 100) | 7,794.04 | 0.89% | | Germany (DAX) | 15,058.30 | 0.74% | | France (CAC 40) | 6,975.68 | 0.74% | *European stock prices are as of 7 am ET. Data received directly from the reference indexes through ICE Data Services.
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Commodities Oil prices rose on Thursday due to the continued belief that China's reopening will lead to an increase in demand. - Brent crude gained 1.7% on Thursday and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.3%.
- Crude inventories in the U.S. rose by 19 million barrels last year, significantly more than the 2.2 million barrels that analysts had projected.
- The US Energy Information Administration said that the EU's ban on Russian seaborne imports of petroleum products, which is set to come into effect on Feb. 5, will likely have a bigger impact on markets than an earlier EU ban on crude oil that came into effect in December.
| Oil (NYSEARCA:OIL) | 29.71 | 0.71% | | Gold (NYSEARCA:GLD) | 176.64 | 1.16% | | Silver (NYSEARCA:SLV) | 21.88 | 1.53% | | Corn (NYSEARCA:CORN) | 26.50 | 2.00% | | Lumber (NASDAQ:WOOD) | 76.49 | 1.39% | *Commodity prices are as of 7 am ET. Data from MarketWatch. To understand why investors track the prices of these commodities, click here.
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Currencies The U.S. Dollar fell after the release of positive U.S. CPI data suggesting that the Federal Reserve will no longer need to take a hawkish approach to fight inflation. - The U.S. Dollar Index lost 0.8% and is at a 7-month low.
- The Dollar hit a 6.5-month low against the Japanese Yen despite the yen's recent struggles.
- The Chinese Yuan hit a new 5-month high due to continued optimism about the reopening of China's economy.
| UK(GBP) | £0.82 | -0.57% | | Europe (EURO) | €0.92 | -1.15% | | Canada (Canadian Dollar) | $1.34 | -0.45% | | Japan (Yen) | ¥128.99 | -2.36% | *Exchange rates as of 7 am ET. Data from Morningstar Financial Research. To understand why we track these currencies and the differences between them, click here.
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 |  | Liam Gill is a founder, lawyer and investor.
He previously founded Fumarii Technologies, which became a top 20 ranked cloud computing service (Yahoo Finance! 2019) valued at over $30M. He holds an LLB Laws (UK), MSc Management and Master of Laws and currently practices law in Vancouver, Canada.
|   | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is the author of "Things You Can Do," an illustrated book about climate action. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
