Dow shot up 475, advancers over decliners 4-1 & NAZ jumped 209. The MLP index added 1+ to the 146s & the REIT index went up 1+ to the 382s. Junk bond funds also rose in price & Treasuries were sold while stocks rallied. Oil rose 1+ to the high 54s (not seen in a year) & gold plummeted 27 to 1836 (more on both below).
AMJ (Alerian MLP Index tracking fund)
![Live 24 hours gold chart [Kitco Inc.]](https://www.kitco.com/images/live/gold.gif?0.2180338269244485)
Top US oil producer Exxon Mobil (XOM), a Dow stock & Dividend Aristocrat, posted its first annual loss as a public company as the COVID-19 pandemic hammered energy prices & it reduced the value of its shale gas properties by more than $20B in Q4. XOM cut up to 15% of its workforce & delayed oil & gas projects after accepting oil prices could
remain below $60 a barrel for years. It added $22B to its debt
last year to cover its div & project spending. The company reported a net annual loss of $22.4B for 2020, compared with a full-year profit of $14.3B in 2019. The company posted 4 straight qtrs of losses in 2020 & is under fire from
activist investors pushing for board changes & a better strategy for a
global transition to cleaner fuels. The stock rose 70¢.
If you would like to learn more about XOM, click on this link:
club.ino.com/trend/analysis/stock/XOM?a_aid=CD3289&a_bid=6ae5b6f7
Exxon Mobil posts first annual loss in 40 years
The US appears to be turning a corner on the Covid-19 pandemic as cases & hospitalizations rapidly fall across the US, but that progress could be thwarted by more contagious strains that have quickly taken hold in other parts of the world. The US reported 134K new cases of the virus yesterday, bringing the average number of new cases over the previous 7 days to 146K, according to Johns Hopkins University. That's down about 41% from a peak of almost 250K new cases per day last month. The number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 across the country has similarly fallen. There were 93K people in hospitals with Covid-19 across the US as of yesterday. That's about 29% lower than the peak of 132K hospitalized with the disease in the US on Jan 6. Daily new deaths from Covid-19 remain high but appear to have hit a plateau. More than 3100 Americans are dying from the disease every day, based on a 7-day average. Daily new deaths lag cases & hospitalizations by a few weeks, so epidemiologists expect that figure to soon start to fall as well. But epidemiologists warn that the US is in a dangerous point in the pandemic. They expressed concern that the declining numbers could lull the country into a sense of complacency when more caution than ever is needed. And while the numbers are off their peaks, the level of infection remains so high in most of the country that the loosening of restrictions as well as the spread of more contagious variants could still undo the country's progress.
U.S. Covid hospitalizations fall, but new strains could undo that progress
Shares of Pfizer (PFE) slipped after the drug maker
reported fourth-quarter profit that missed expectations, but revenue
that beat forecasts & provided an upbeat full-year outlook. EPS was 10¢, versus a 6¢ loss in the year-ago period. Excluding nonrecurring items, adjusted EPS rose to 42¢ from 36¢, but missed the estimate of 50¢. Revenue rose 12% to $11.7B, topping the estimate of
$11.5B. Revenue for vaccines increased 17%, for oncology jumped
23% & for rare disease grew 26%, while revenue edged up 1% for
internal medicine & rose 8% for hospital. PFE raised its 2021 EPS
guidance to $3.10-3.20 from $3.00-3.10, due primarily to
additional refinements of its COVID-19 vaccine revenue forecast. The
company expects 2021 revenue of $59.4-61.4B, above
the current consensus of $58.3. The stock fell 81¢.
If you would like to learn more about PFE, click on this link:
club.ino.com/trend/analysis/stock/PFE?a_aid=CD3289&a_bid=6ae5b6f7
Pfizer stock slips after profit misses expectations, while revenue beats
Oil futures rose, with expectations that efforts by major oil producers to reduce production will lead to tighter global supplies lifting US prices to their highest settlement in more than a year. OPEC & other major producers (OPEC+) expect output cuts to keep the oil market in a supply deficit thru the year, even as the producers lowered this year's outlook on demand growth, according to their document. The document also revealed that the producer alliance’s Joint Technical Committee, which held a meeting today, expects the year's oil market deficit to peak at 2M barrels per day in May. An OPEC+ ministerial meeting will be held tomorrow to review the oil market. West Texas Intermediate crude for Mar rose $1.21 (2.3%) to settle at $54.76 a barrel, with prices logging the highest front-month contract settlement in a year. Apr Brent crude, the global benchmark, added $1.11 (2%) at $57.46 a barrel to also post the highest finish in a year. Oil has been helped by surveys indicating members of the OPEC+ alliance lifted output in Jan by less than was allowed under their agreement.
U.S. oil prices post highest finish in over a year
Gold & silver futures finished sharply lower, with the drop in silver prices following a move by the CME Group to raise margin deposit requirements for trades, in the wake of precipitous gains in the precious & industrial metal. Yesterday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Acting Chairman Rostin Behnam said that the CFTC is “closely monitoring recent activity in the silver markets.” That statement was followed by the CME Group announcing that it was raising margin requirements to $16,500 per contract from $14K, an 18% hike, effective today. The move means that silver futures traders are required to put down more collateral to open a trading position. Silver futures for Mar dropped $3.02 (10.3%) to settle at $26.402 an ounce, after jumping yesterday by 9.3% to mark around the highest settlement for a most-active contract since 2013. The slump in silver follows what some dealers & commodity strategists have attributed to an attempted short-squeeze, pointing to individual investors who also were blamed for driving up the values in shares of GameStop (GME) & AMC Entertainment (AMC) in the past few weeks. Apr gold tumbled $30 (1.6%) to settle at $1833 an ounce, following a 0.7% gain yesterday. Gold prices trade below both the 50-day moving average at $1858 & the 200-day MA at $1852 an ounce. Moving averages are used by technical analysts to help gauge short-term and long-term bullish & bearish trends in an asset.
Silver prices tumble over 10% and gold skids below trend lines
Nothing like raising margin rates to end the rally in silver, while the mad rush to buy GME ended. However, the Dow along with many ordinary stocks had an exceptional day. Speculators remain active, making it difficult to understand what's going on in the stock market. The stimulus package is the main driver for stocks & it looks like the Dems will ram that thru come hell or high water.
Dow Jones Industrials
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