Stocks closed Friday and the week higher after a dreadful risk-off Thursday (that snapped the longest winning streak for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq since 2021), which was driven by the worst 30-year Treasury Bond auction since 2016 and comments from Fed Chairman Powell over the potential for more interest rate increases. Many still feel that the Federal Reserve is done with the 18-month tightening and could start to lower fed funds by the summer of 2024.
Treasury yields:
- Closed mixed across the curve as buyers bought the longer maturities, while some sellers were in the shorter-dated notes.
- The inversion between the ten-year note and the 2-year paper has tightened recently, but history shows that it signals recession.
Brent Crude and West Texas Intermediate:
- Closed higher for the third straight session after diving to a three-month low earlier in the week.
- Brent was last seen at $81.66, up over 2%, while WTI closed up 2.17% at $77.38. Natural gas closed at $3.02.
The December Gold contract:
- Closed the day lower at $1940.60 after trading near the $2000 mark in late October.
Bitcoin
- The crypto behemoth has been on fire over hopes for a crypto exchange-traded fund and was last seen at $37,290, up 1.6%.
This week’s most significant upgrades and downgrades from across Wall Street are here.
Upgrades:
- Devon Energy Corp. (NYSE: DVN) Pickering Energy Partners upgrade from Neutral to Outperform; no price target given
- HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) Edward Jones upgrade from Hold to Buy; no price target given
- Synopsys Inc. (NASDAQ: SNPS) Morgan Stanley initiated at Overweight with a price target of $600
Downgrades:
- Paramount Global Inc. (NASDAQ: PARA) Bank of America cut rating from Buy to Underperform; the price target of $9 was unchanged
- NXP Semiconductors, NV (NASDAQ: NXPI) Citigroup cut from Neutral to Sell; price target slashed from $216 to $150
- Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) HSBC initiated coverage with a Reduce rating with a price target of $146
Top Gaining Stocks
Top Losing Stocks