1. U.S. stock futures point to a bounce at the open after the S&P 500 had its worst week since September. After a hotter wholesale inflation report last week, the government's key look at November consumer prices is out Tuesday. The Federal Reserve's expected interest rate hike comes Wednesday following its two-day December meeting.
2. Gunning for Apple (AAPL): Barclays sees waning demand for the tech giant's devices. Oppenheimer cuts its price target on Apple to $170 per share from $190; but keeps outperform (buy) rating. Bernstein says Apple Pay is inflecting. Noted analyst Toni Sacconaghi does question how Paypal (PYPL) will handle the competition.
3. A re-acceleration at Amazon (AMZN) is coming, according to Wells Fargo. This could be a very big call. No one is thinking this way. Wells Fargo analysts see the e-commerce trajectory normalizing.
4. Microsoft (MSFT) agrees to a 10-year data, analytics and cloud partnership with the London Stock Exchange. As part of the deal, the tech giant is also taking a near 4% stake in the LSE.
5. As I wrote in my Sunday column, the selling on Wall Street could end after the Fed meeting, but shares of Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon need to shed a trillion more dollars minimum to power things higher. I think it will happen in time. We're going to hold them in the meantime.
6. Big layoffs coming at Club holding Salesforce (CRM). The stock is down nearly 50% year to date. We already know about some high-profile executive departures, including co-CEO Bret Taylor.
7. Coupa Software (COUP) bought by private equity company Thoma Bravo for $6.15 billion. Incredibly expensive. The stock is up 27% in the premarket. Coupa first of the SaaS (software-as-a-service) provider to be purchased.
8. Cowen raises its price target on Club holding Nvidia (NVDA) to $220 per share from $200; keeps outperform (buy) rating on the chipmaker. Analysts see "big gaming reset, China AI bans, and inventory write-downs all behind us." Separately, Wells Fargo downgrades rating Qualcomm (QCOM), another Club name, to underweight from equal weight (sell from hold).
9. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) price target raised to $205 per share from $198 at Citi; keeps buy rating. Meanwhile, Amgen (AMGN) is buying Horizon Therapeutics (HZNP), a company J&J rejected, for $27.8 billion. Expensive. Horizon jumps 15% in the premarket on the deal news.
10. Rivian Automotive (RIVN) drops Mercedes-Benz joint venture to make electric vans in Europe. Rivian says it's "focusing on our consumer business" and its existing customers.
(Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long AAPL, AMZN, MSFT, GOOGL, CRM, NVDA, QCOM and JNJ. See here for a full list of the stocks.)
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