Markets are little changed as year-end rally pauses

Dow was flat, decliners modestly ahead of advancers & NAZ went up 40.  The MLP index crawled up 1+ to the 303s & the REIT index was off 3+ to the 422s.  Junk bond funds slid lower & Treasuries saw more selling which drove yields higher (more below).  Oil rose fractionally to 69 & gold gained 29 to 2714.

Dow Jones Industrials

Automakerr Stellantis (STLA) & Chinese battery giant CATL announced plans to jointly build a €4.1B ($4.3B), large-scale lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery plant in Spain.  The 50-50 joint venture could reach up to 50 gigawatt hours, subject to the evolution of the market for electric vehicles in Europe & requisite gov support.  The facility will be built at STLA's’ Zaragoza site in northeastern Spain & is expected to be up & running by the end of 2026.  Dodge maker STLA said the plant will boost the car giant's “best-in-class” LFP credentials in Europe, enabling the company to make more high-quality & affordable battery-electric passenger cars & SUVs.  It comes at a time when Europe's automakers are facing a perfect storm of challenges on the road to full electrification, including a lack of affordable models, a slower-than-anticipated rollout of charging points & the prospect of targeted US tariffs.  “This important joint venture with our partner CATL will bring innovative battery production to a manufacturing site that is already a leader in clean and renewable energy, helping drive a 360-degree sustainable approach,” Chair John Elkann said & he thanked Spanish authorities for their support.  STLA stock rose 19¢.

Stellantis and China’s CATL team up to build $4.3B EV battery plant

Oracle (ORCL) shares slid after the database software company reported fiscal 2nd-qtr results that fell short of estimates & issued a weaker-than-expected forecast.  2nd-qtr sales grew 9% year over year.  Net income increased 26% to $3.1B ($1.10 a share) from $2.5B (89¢ a share) a year earlier.  Revenue in its cloud services business jumped 12% from a year earlier to $10.8B, accounting for 77% of total revenue.  ORCL's biggest growth engine has been cloud infrastructure as businesses move workloads out of their own data centers.  The business is booming due to soaring demand for computing power that can handle artificial intelligence projects.  Revenue in its cloud infrastructure unit soared 52% from a year earlier to $2.4B.  For the current qtr, ORCL expects revenue growth of 7-9%.  At the midpoint of that range, revenue would be about $14.3B & analysts were expecting sales of $14.6B.  The company said it expects adjusted EPS of $1.50 - $1.54 & analysts were calling for EPS of $1.57.  In Sep, ORCL raised its fiscal 2026 revenue guidance to $66B, which was about $1.5B more than what analysts projected.  During that month, ORCL also announced that its cloud unit would start taking customer orders for computing clusters derived from more than 131K Nvidia (NVDA) “Blackwell” graphics processing units, used for AI model training & related tasks.  ORCL stock fell 14 (7%).

Oracle shares slide on earnings and revenue miss, disappointing forecast

Treasury yields rose as investors awaited fresh inflation data due later this week.  The yield on the 10-year Treasury was up more than 3 basis points to 4.238% & the 2-year Treasury also rose more than 3 basis points to 4.166%.  Yields & prices move in opposite directions & 1 basis point equals 0.01%.  Investors are looking ahead to fresh inflation data, which will be the major economic release this week. The consumer price index for Nov will be published tomorrow & the producer price index for Nov will be published on Thurs.  Headline inflation is expected to have risen 0.3% in Nov & 2.7% over the past year.  Investors are keenly anticipating the CPI as it will be the last reading before the Federal Reserve's Dec 17-18 meeting & it could influence interest rate decisions.

Treasury yields rise as investors await fresh inflation data

Stocks were mixed as investors trod carefully on the eve of a closely watched consumer inflation report seen as key to the path of interest rates.  While stocks are faltering, they are still holding not far off record highs as investors wait for tomorrow's update on consumer prices.  Hopes are that the Nov inflation reading will provide further evidence of a "soft landing" for the economy, justifying widespread bets on a Federal Reserve rate cut in Dec.