Stock Market Today: Dow Jones, S&P 500 Futures Slip After Christmas Day—Nvidia, Sobr Safe, Biohaven In Focus

U.S. stock futures slipped on Friday after Wednesday’s higher close. Futures of major benchmark indices fell.

The New York Stock Exchange closed early at 1 p.m. ET on Wednesday and remained closed Thursday for Christmas Day. On the economic data front, U.S. initial jobless claims declined by 10,000 from the previous week to 214,000 in the week ending Dec. 20, compared to market estimates of 223,000.

Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury bond yielded 4.15%, and the two-year bond was at 3.51%. The CME Group’s FedWatch tool‘s projections show markets pricing an 84.5% likelihood of the Federal Reserve leaving the current interest rates unchanged in January.

Futures	Change (+/-)
Dow Jones	-0.12%
S&P 500	-0.06%
Nasdaq 100	-0.06%
Russell 2000	-0.27%

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ), which track the S&P 500 index and Nasdaq 100 index, respectively, were lower in premarket on Friday. The SPY was down 0.029% at $690.18, while the QQQ declined 0.014% to $623.84, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Stocks In Focus

Nvidia

• Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) shares rose 0.58% after it announced a non-exclusive licensing agreement with AI chip startup Groq, which was founded in 2016. Groq has entered a non-exclusive licensing agreement with NVIDIA covering its inference technology.

• NVDA maintains a stronger price trend over the short, medium, and long terms, with a poor value ranking. Additional performance details, as per Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings, are available here.

Dynavax Technologies

• Dynavax Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:DVAX) shares surged 38.19% following Sanofi‘s announcement to acquire the vaccines company.

• It maintains a stronger price trend over the short, medium, and long terms. Additional performance details, as per Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings, are available here.

Sobr Safe

• Sobr Safe Inc. (NASDAQ:SOBR) dropped 15.61% after announcing definitive agreements to issue 1.29 million shares of common stock at $1.55 per share and associated warrants in a private placement.

• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that SOBR maintains a weaker price trend over the long term but a weaker trend in the short and medium terms. Additional performance details are available here.

Davis Commodities

• Davis Commodities Ltd. (NASDAQ:DTCK) shares jumped 7.19% after reporting revenue of $95 million for the six months that ended June 30, up 42.1% from $66.9 million a year earlier, according to the company’s statement.

• DTCK maintains a weaker price trend over the short, medium, and long terms. Additional performance details, as per Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings, are available here.

Biohaven

• Biohaven Ltd. (NYSE:BHVN) slumped 14.06% after it disclosed that its Phase 2 proof-of-concept study of BHV-7000 in major depressive disorder failed to meet its primary endpoint.

• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings shows that BHVN maintains a weaker price trend over the short, medium, and long term. Additional information is available here.

Cues From Last Session

Consumer staples, real estate, and utilities stocks recorded the biggest gains on Wednesday, while energy stocks bucked the trend to close lower.

Index	Performance (+/-)	Value
Nasdaq Composite	0.22%	23,613.31
S&P 500	0.32%	6,932.05
Dow Jones	0.60%	48,731.16
Russell 2000	0.27%	2,548.08

Insights From Analysts

Despite the S&P 500 hitting all-time highs, University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers argues the celebration is misplaced, criticizing the media’s fixation on record stock numbers as “economic illiteracy.”

Wolfers pointed out that while U.S. markets are up roughly 18%, they are significantly lagging behind the rest of the world. “Global markets… have risen by 30% over the past year,” he noted. “We’ve underperformed the global market by 12%.” He characterized the year as “miserable” for American investors when benchmarked properly against international peers.

Wolfers also warned against trusting “noisy” economic data, highlighting a disconnect between surging GDP and stalling job creation. While GDP grew over 4%, a more nuanced measure, Gross Domestic Income (GDI), showed only 2.4% growth.

“Employment growth has plummeted,” Wolfers observed, suggesting the economy may have created “as few as zero jobs” recently. He cautioned that early data often tells conflicting stories, concluding that “the first draft of history is messy.”

See Also: How to Trade Futures

Upcoming Economic Data

Here’s what investors will be keeping an eye on Friday.

• No data is scheduled to be released on Friday.

Commodities, Gold, Crypto, And Global Equity Markets

Crude oil futures were trading lower in the early New York session by 0.39% to hover around $58.58 per barrel.

Gold Spot US Dollar rose 0.84% to hover around $4,516.80 per ounce. Its last record high stood at $4,531.24 per ounce. The U.S. Dollar Index spot was 0.10% higher at the 98.0730 level.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) was trading 1.48% higher at $88,676.96 per coin.

Asian markets closed mixed on Friday, as Australia’s ASX 200 and India’s Nifty 50 indices fell. Whereas, China’s CSI 300, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, South Korea’s Kospi, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 indices rose. European markets were mostly lower in early trade.

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