Financial market research and analysis

There was heavy trading in Zoom shares on Wednesday with investors buying the dip in tech stocks.

MARKETS
News
• Asian stocks are mixed on Thursday morning as U.S. stock futures are pointing to a lower open following a strong session for U.S tech stocks on Wednesday;
• Fauci predicts positive data from second Covid vaccine soon.
• Coronavirus update: Texas first state to surpass 1 million cases; UK death toll tops 50,000;
• Georgia begins hand recount of votes after Trump request. US state will audit results that show Joe Biden leading by more than 14,000 votes;
• OPEC cuts 2020 oil demand forecast again on rising Covid cases — sees slower recovery next year;
• Goldman Sachs expects the S&P500 to rally to 4,300 by the end of 2021, which represents a 21% gain from here;
• Morgan Stanley names internet companies that will be hit by China’s proposed anti-monopoly rules. The list includes Alibaba, Tencent, PinDuoDuo, JD.com and Meituan Dianping;

What else?
• Billionaire investor Ray Dalio believes Ant's IPO suspension was reasonable - and says NOT investing in China is 'very risky';
• Zoom Video jumped 10% in heavy volumes;
• Stifel analyst Andrew Carter downgraded Aurora Cannabis and Tilray to sell from hold on Wednesday, saying that the excitement around expanded legal marijuana in the U.S has gone too far for the stocks.

Earnings update
• Fossil Group — Shares of the watchmaker spiked more than 30% after Fossil announced its third-quarter results that included widening margins;
• Vroom — The online auto retailer’s stock fell about 10% despite Vroom reporting a smaller-than-expected loss for its third quarter;

Day Ahead
• Earnings: Disney (DIS), Palantir (PLTR), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Beazer Homes (BZH), Farfetch (FTCH);
• Macro: U.K. Preliminary Q3 GDP, U.K. Manufacturing Production, German CPI, Eurozone Industrial Production, U.S. Core CPI.

WRAP
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose on Wednesday as tech shares recovered some of their losses from earlier in the week at the expense of names who would benefit from an economic recovery. The S&P 500 closed 0.8% higher and the Nasdaq jumped 2%. Apple gained 3%. Facebook and Amazon rose 1.5% and 3.4%, respectively. The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed up 1.1%, with utilities adding 2.6% to lead gains. Bitcoin was bid, trading a tick shy of $16,000. Brent Crude topped $45 and WTI spiked above $43 overnight - a 10-week high - before fading notably during the day. Gold futures faded further and closed at their lowest level since July.

Fed’s Rosengren says next 6 months will be ‘pretty choppy’ despite vaccine news. Russia says its coronavirus vaccine is 92% effective, in battle to beat the West.