Dow went up 84, advancers over decliners 2-1 & NAZ recovered 47 after yesterday's big loss. The MLP index jumped 5+ to the 157s & the REIT index was steady at 358 following its latest decline. Junk bond funds hardly budged in price & Treasuries were hit with more selling pressure. Oil rose to 53 & gold was off 8 to 1842.
AMJ (Alerian MLP index tracking fund)
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US online purchases over the 2020 holidays grew 32.2% from 2019, totaling a record $188B as shoppers stayed home & shopped on the web during the pandemic, according to Adobe Analytics. E-commerce sales during Nov, which included Black Friday & Cyber Monday, reached $100B for the first time, said Adobe, which tracks the web transactions of 80 of the top 100 internet retailers in the US . In another first, online spending exceeded $1B daily during the 2020 holiday season & 50 days topped $2B. ″In light of the pandemic, digital has become the primary way for people to connect, work, be entertained and shop,” said Taylor Schreiner, director of Adobe Digital Insights. “Now, as Covid-19 cases continue to rise and more stringent lock-down measures return, online spending is expected to stay elevated, at least for the early part of 2021.” Groceries, appliances & books surged in popularity around the holidays compared with Oct levels while online sales of toys were up 50% from 2019 & the jewelry category was up 66%. Internet spending during the week of Thanksgiving thru Cyber Monday accounted for just 18% of the overall season, down from 20% in 2019. As retailers promoted deals earlier than ever, many Americans started their shopping in Oct in a bid to avoid crowded aisles during the pandemic. Retailers that offer curbside & other convenient pickup options for online orders saw even stronger sales over the holidays, according to a separate analysis by Salesforce. Their digital sales were up an average of 49% from a year earlier, compared with growth of around 28% for the retail businesses that didn't have curbside pickup & similar options, Salesforce found. Shoppers also have been looking for ways to finance their purchases, and avoid running up their credit cards. The use of “buy now, pay later” for online orders grew 109% during the holidays, Salesforce found, with the biggest runup taking place the final week before Christmas.
Americans spent a record online over 2020 holidays, and more e-commerce gains are expected
The Trump administration will issue new guidelines that expand coronavirus vaccine eligibility to everyone age 65 & older, a senior official said. The states' focus on vaccinating health-care workers and nursing homes has created a bottleneck, the administration official said. “The states are being told immediately they need to expand to 65-plus as well as those under 65 with comorbid conditions,” the official added. The administration will also stop holding back Ms of doses reserved for the 2nd round of 2-dose vaccines, the official said, adding they released doses that had been held in reserve on Sun. Pres-elect Joe Biden's transition team announced Fri that his administration planned to release all doses held in reserve. The Trump administration is expected to announce the change today with officials from Operation Warp Speed, the White House vaccine program. US Surgeon General Jerome Adams also confirmed the changes, saying the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention's previous prioritization guidelines to states was “actually causing governors and states to slow a little bit.” “We are going to have clear guidance from the CDC to governors that they should vaccinate people 65 and above and anyone below 64 who has a chronic medical condition,” he continued.
CDC to expand Covid vaccine guidelines to everyone 65 and older
Abbott Labs (ABT), a Dividend Aristocrat, announced that it is making
its BinaxNOW Covid-19 rapid antigen test available to schools,
universities, pharmacies & workplaces that require frequent & affordable testing. The company, that has been testing its US
employees weekly since Oct, is also sharing its testing blueprint
with customers interested in learning the model it has used to get its
workforce back to its facilities. The company is in the final
stages of completing its self-funded investment in US manufacturing
capacity to meet market demand. As the pandemic evolves, the need for
rapid testing has only grown. To date at least 374K Americans have died from the coronavirus
since the health crisis began & the nation is recording at least
244K new Covid-19 cases daily, based on a 7-day average
using Johns Hopkins University data. Rapid
Covid testing could be a game-changer in the weeks &months ahead. Vaccine rollout in the US has been slow. The fight to control the
spread of the virus is expected to intensify as new infectious variants
of the disease pop up in the US. Since introduced in Aug, ABT has distributed 150M BinaxNow
Covid-19 antigen tests thru the Dept of Health & Human Services (HHS) to
states, territories & targeted entities such as nursing homes,
assisted living facilities, home health & hospice agencies, black
colleges & universities & the Indian Health Service. ABT will
continue supplying HHS with a total of 30M tests thru
Mar 2021. In Dec, the Food & Drug Administration authorized ABT'S rapid Covid-19 test for at-hone use, though doctors must prescribe the test for patients. The
size of a credit card & with no equipment required, the $5
BinaxNOW Covid-19 test provides results in 15 minutes & detects the
virus when people are most infectious & therefore at the greatest risk
of spreading it to others. The BinaxNOW COVID-19 Ag Card
is an assay for the qualitative detection of specific antigens to
Covid-19 in the human nasal cavity. A simple nasal swab is used to
collect specimens from people suspected of having an active infection. The stock fell 2.09.
If you would like to learn more about ABT, click on this link:
club.ino.com/trend/analysis/stock/ABT?a_aid=CD3289&a_bid=6ae5b6f7
Abbott Labs rolls out its BinaxNOW rapid Covid-19 test to schools and workplaces nationwide
Tech shares rose despite concerns over increased regulatory scrutiny & impacts to user growth. The fight with the coronavirus is getting the most attention by traders. ABT's launch of its rapid test is encouraging in this war.
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