Tesla, Roku, Bitcoin: What to Watch When the Stock Market Opens Today

 By Caitlin Ostroff 

Here’s what we’re watching as markets open Monday for the first trading session of 2021.

— U.S. stock futures rose on hopes that continued government stimulus and the rollout of coronavirus vaccines will bode well for equities. Futures tied to the S&P 500 rose 0.5% Monday, while contracts lined to the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.6%, pointing to gains for both gauges after the opening bell. Read our full market wrap here.

What’s Coming Up

— IHS Markit’s U.S. manufacturing index for December is out at 9:45 a.m. ET.

— U.S. construction spending for November, due at 10 a.m., is expected to increase 1.1% from the prior month.

Market Movers to Watch

— Tesla shares rose 2.8% premarket. The electric-vehicle maker’s sales soared in 2020 despite a drop in global demand for new cars during the Covid-19 pandemic. Tesla said Saturday that it delivered a record 499,550 vehicles globally last year, up from roughly 367,500 the previous year.

— Roku gained 3.6% in premarket trading after The Wall Street Journal reported that Quibi is in advanced talks to sell its content catalog to Roku, as the short-form streaming service winds down its operations following an unsuccessful run.

— Shares in The9 Ltd., an Internet company based in China, rose more than 100% premarket after the company said it signed an investment term sheet with investors to start a cryptocurrency business.

— U.S.-listed shares of China’s three large telecom carriers fell premarket after the New York Stock Exchange moved to delist the trio to comply with a U.S. government ban. Shares in China Mobile declined 2.8%, China Telecom fell 4.5% and China Unicom edged down 0.5%.

— Bitcoin fell more than 8% against the dollar Monday, trading near 1 bitcoin buying $30,221.83. Bitcoin rallied strongly in the last two months of 2020 as a string of well-known investors and companies unveiled bitcoin holdings.

Market Fact

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite notched more than 100 record closes in 2020. The Dow rose 7.2% for 2020, the S&P 500 jumped 16% and the Nasdaq surged 44%. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-cap stocks gained 18%.

Chart of the Day

Investors ended one of Wall Street’s wildest years on record by piling into everything from bitcoin to emerging markets, raising expectations that a powerful economic comeback will fuel even more gains.

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 04, 2021 07:15 ET (12:15 GMT)

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