The Market In 5 Minutes: Adobe, Oracle Take The Earnings Stage

Macro Focus

U.S. stocks looked set for a mixed open on Friday, with the Dow average inching closer to the psychologically important 20,000 level and on track for its longest weekly winning streak in more than a year.

USA Housing Starts (MoM) for Nov -18.70% vs 25.50% prior reading. USA Housing Starts for Nov 1.09M vs 1.23M consensus estimate.

USA Building Permits (MoM) for Nov -4.70% vs 2.90% prior reading.

• The Atlanta Fed's Business Inflation Expectations survey for December will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET.
• Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Jeffrey Lacker is set to speak in Charlotte, N.C. at 12:30 p.m. ET.
• The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the latest week is schedule for release at 1:00 p.m. ET.

BZ News Desk Focus

• Oracle ORCL Reports Q2 Adj. EPS $0.61 vs $0.60 Est., Q2 Sales $9.035B vs $9.12B Est.
• Adobe ADBE Reports Q4 GAAP EPS $0.80, Adj. EPS $0.90 vs $0.86 Est., Sales $1.61B vs $1.59B Est.
• Jabil JBL Reports Q1 Adj. EPS $0.69 vs $0.64 Est., Sales $5.1B vs $4.91B Est.
• Danaos Corp. DAC Reports Q3 EPS $0.21 vs. Est. $0.47, Rev. $111.7M vs. Est. $130M

Sell-Side Themes

Noble Corporation NE and Frank's International FI both received of pair of downgrades, one each of which was lowered to Sell.

Sell-Side's Most Noteworthy Calls

• Morgan Stanley upgraded Eli Lilly LLY to Overweight.
• Bernstein upgraded General Electric GE to Outperform.
• Mizuho upgraded Horizon Pharma HZNP to Buy.
• Morgan Stanley downgraded Coca-Cola KO to Equal-Weight.
• Deutsche Bank downgraded Darden Restaurants DRI to Hold.
• Piper Jaffray assumed coverage on Apple AAPL at Overweight.

Deal Talk

Verizon VZ could consider backing out of the deal to acquire Yahoo YHOO, according to Bloomberg. The report said Verizon could renegotiate the deal or walk away to pursue a bigger deal for content and video, to keep pace with rival AT&T, who is acquiring Time Warner. Yahoo announced on Wednesday that one billion accounts were accessed by an unauthorized third-party in August 2013.

Sanofi SNY is in advanced talks to acquire Actelion, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg, in a deal for the Swiss drugmaker that could be announced as soon as next week. The companies are discussing a price of about $275 per Actelion share, the people said. That price may include a contingent value right, or CVR, for Actelion shareholders, which would pay out depending on the future performance of certain pipeline drugs.

In The News

n the wake of the recent revelation that over a billion Yahoo accounts may have been compromised, as well as accusations from some U.S. intelligence officials that the Russian government may have hacked the Democratic National Committee, cybersecurity is at the forefront of the national conversation. Shoppers concerned about the privacy and security of their online transactions might find a potential solution by taking a page from drug dealers.

Amazon AMZN announced its Prime Video feature would be offered as a paid standalone service worldwide, and it seems India will be a major battleground market between Amazon and OTT trailblazer Netflix NFLX. Here's a look at a few factors that will come into play.

Blogosphere

"Who could have predicted in the beginning of the year that the difference in exposure to financials would be the cause of such a large discrepancy in performance?"

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