Stocks opened little changed and the Dow and S&P 500 have mostly remained that way all morning. The exception is the Nasdaq, which is extending its rally, helped in large part by the post-earnings jump in Netflix (NFLX). ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., the Richmond Fed manufacturing index slumped 6 points to a reading of 14 in January. Additionally, the IMF raised its global GDP growth forecast to 3.9% in both 2018 and 2019, due in large part to the U.S. tax bill. In Asia, the Bank of Japan left its monetary policy unchanged, as was widely expected. COMPANY NEWS: Shares of Netflix have advanced over 10% after the company’s domestic and international subscriber additions last quarter, and its forecast for membership growth in the new quarter, came in well ahead of consensus… Four Dow members reported earnings this morning. Among them, Travelers (TRV) has been the best performer following its report, rising 4%. Verizon (VZ) was near the bottom of the 30-member group, sliding about a half a percentage point following its worse than expected earnings report, but it was still faring better than the two laggards – Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Procter & Gamble (PG) – which each fell about 3%… Tesla (TSLA) announced a new long-term performance award for Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk that vests entirely contingent on achieving market capitalization and operational milestones. In order to fully vest, Tesla’s market cap will have to grow to $650B, an increase of almost $600B, and certain revenue and profitability goals will also have to be achieved, the company said. Otherwise, the head of the electric carmaker will receive no salary, no cash bonuses and no other guaranteed compensation of any kind. MAJOR MOVERS: Among the notable gainers was ResMed (RMD), which jumped 17% after the company’s “significant” Q2 beat prompted upgrades at Needham and Northland. However, Macquarie analyst David Bailey downgraded ResMed to Underperform, citing valuation and ongoing average selling price declines. Also higher was Whirlpool (WHR), which gained over 2.5% after the Trump Administration established a tariff of up to 50% on imports of large residential washing machines. Among the noteworthy losers was Insmed (INSM), which dropped 6% after the company filed to sell $300M in convertible senior notes. Also lower was Twitter (TWTR), which slipped nearly 2% after the microblog operator confirmed that its chief operating officer, Anthony Noto, will leave to join online lender SoFi as its CEO. INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was down 19.80, or 0.08%, to 26,194.80, the Nasdaq was up 40.52, or 0.55%, to 7,448.55, and the S&P 500 was up 4.18, or 0.15%, to 2,837.15.
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