Stocks opened higher across the board, but while the Nasdaq has been able to add to its gains the Dow has not been able to hold its opening highs. Oil prices are slightly lower but are maintaining their price above $60 a barrel. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has put together a gain of more than 4% to start the year. ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., Markit’s manufacturing PMI jumped to 55.1 in the final December reading, up a tick from the preliminary reading and up 1.2 points from the 53.9 reading for November. In Asia, the China Caixin manufacturing PMI reading of 51.5 for December topped expectations, while the official NBS manufacturing reading of 51.6 was in-line with the consensus forecast. In Europe, the final Eurozone manufacturing PMI came in at 60.6, in-line with the region’s flash reading. COMPANY NEWS: BP (BP) became the latest multinational to announce that it sees a long-term benefit, but also some short-term charges, due to the new tax laws put in place in the U.S. The oil exploring giant expects its future U.S. after-tax earnings to be positively impacted by the recently-enacted changes to U.S. corporate taxes, but also notes that the lowering of the U.S. corporate income tax rate requires revaluation of BP’s U.S. deferred tax assets and liabilities. The current estimated impact of this will be a one-off non-cash charge to the group income statement of around $1.5B that will impact BP’s fourth quarter results, which comes about a week after Shell (RDS.A) said it would have incurred an estimated charge to earnings of $2B-$2.5B primarily driven by a re-measurement of its deferred tax position to reflect the lower corporate income tax rate. MAJOR MOVERS: Among the notable gainers was Archrock Partners (APLP), which jumped 18% after Archrock (AROC) announced a deal to acquire all of the outstanding common units of Archrock Partners it does not already own for Archrock common stock valued at approximately $607M, representing a 23.4% premium to Archrock Partners’ closing price on December 29. Also higher was BioCryst (BCRX), which gained 10% after RBC Capital upgraded the stock to Outperform, with the firm’s analyst arguing that recent FDA precedent implies a “relatively low bar for approvals of drugs to treat rare, potentially fatal diseases.” Among the noteworthy losers was Oracle (ORCL), which slipped about 2% after The Information discussed indications that Amazon (AMZN) and Salesforce (CRM) are working to reduce their reliance on Oracle infrastructure software. Also lower were shares of Tesaro (TSRO), which fell 9% after analysts at both Piper Jaffray and Cowen lowered their price targets on the name citing their concerns about doctors’ use of the company’s Zejula cancer treatment. INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was up 43.57, or 0.18%, to 24,762.79, the Nasdaq was up 81.61, or 1.18%, to 6,985.00, and the S&P 500 was up 16.16, or 0.6%, to 2,689.77.