December 24, 2023

The Weekend Rip: December 24, 2023

The stock market indexes posted their eighth straight week of gains as the infamous “Santa Claus” rally kicked off on Friday. 📈

Let’s recap and prep you for the week ahead. 📝

What Happened?

🕵️‍♂️ Despite some volatility during the week, investors continue to look for (and find) new opportunities in beaten-down stocks and IPOs into 2024.

🤩 This week’s Stocktwits Top 25 report showed outperformance relative to the indexes.

🛍️ FedEx and Nike both delivered revenue misses that sent their stocks tumbling. Both companies blamed soft consumer appetite and said they’re continuing to focus on cost-cutting in a challenging demand environment. Meanwhile, General Mills is the latest company to say it may have pushed price increases too far.

🎮 Chinese regulators aren’t playing games with their technology giants, proposing new rules to crack down on online gaming.

⚔️ Stocktwits’ fourth week of trading competitions was an exciting one, with a new group of traders gracing the leaderboard. This week’s winner pulled well ahead of his competitors with bearish bets in several stocks driving a 560% weekly gain.

📰 Several other topics made headlines, including U.S. Steel’s takeover, Adobe and Figma’s breakup, Micron’s upbeat outlook, and other earnings movers.

🔥 Certain symbols were on the Stocktwits trending tab for most of the week, including $MULN, $BLUE, $MARA, $UVXY, $POL, and $SOL.X.

Here are the closing prices:

S&P 500	4,755	+0.75%
Nasdaq	14,993	+1.21%
Russell 2000	2,034	+2.46%
Dow Jones	37,386	+0.22%

Bullets

Bullets From The Weekend

🛑 GM stops selling the Chevy Blazer EV plagued by software issues. Owners and reviewers of the electric vehicles have reported problems that mechanics can’t seem to fix, ranging from infotainment systems that randomly stop working to SUVs that won’t charge. Edmunds reports that two months after purchasing the vehicle, it had 23 fault codes on a diagnostic test at the dealer, the single longest list of significant faults that Edmunds has ever seen on a new car. InsideEVs writer Kevin Williams also had issues, with his weeklong test ending after just 28 hours. The Verge has more.

💸 EV tax credits to get better, but harder to qualify for. The federal tax credit for electric vehicles is about to become far more attractive to buyers. At the start of the new year, the $7,500 and $4,000 tax rebates will be available to buyers when they purchase the car instead of claiming it when they file their taxes. Nearly half of all new car dealerships in the country have already signed up to ensure they can offer that point-of-sale rebate. However, new restrictions mean fewer vehicles qualify for the tax credits. More from TechCrunch.

🪧 Uber and Lyft drivers hold protests during the busy holiday travel season. Rideshare drivers at several U.S. airports shut off their apps and remained parked for several hours, leaving passengers stranded. The protest was intended to send a message to Uber, Lyft, and other rideshare companies that drivers deserve higher wages. Some drivers reported receiving less than 50% of the fare for the ride, with others reporting even lower payouts. Despite their efforts, whether the protest had sufficient participation to create a meaningful impact is unclear. Fox Business has more.

The Brief

Need a concise summary of what’s going on this week? Look no further. Here’s an overview of important earnings and economic data for the trading week ahead.

Economic Calendar

It’s a light week of economic events, with investors focused on the regional activity indexes. In addition to the above, check out this week’s complete list of economic releases.