“Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.” – John Maynard Keynes

1. ECB’s Draghi Starts Squaring QE Circle in Month of Persuasion — bloomberg, as European officials prepare to consider sovereign-bond purchases on Jan. 22, ECB president Mario Draghi is busy working to get as many policy makers as possible on his side. One concession being debated is to require national central banks to be responsible for at least some of their own credit risk, according to people familiar with the talks. The stimulus is intended to expand the ECB’s balance sheet by as much as €1T ($1.2T).
2. Abbvie (ABBV) New Hepatitis C Drug Gets Helping Hand — WSJ, the price war over hepatitis C drugs continues, after Express Scripts (NASDAQ:ESRX) announced that it will only cover AbbVie’s (NYSE:ABBV) newly approved Viekira Pak, which received clearance from the FDA on Friday. The move will help the drug maker take market share away from Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) and J&J (NYSE:JNJ), which make blockbuster hep C drugs, including Sovaldi, Harvoni and Olysio. AbbVie’s Viekira Pak will have a price of $83,319, although the agreement with Express Scripts involves a significant discount to that price.
3. Russia Tells State Exporters to Sell Forex Revenues to Help Ruble — CNBC, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed an order forcing the country’s largest state exporters to sell part of their foreign currency revenues to help stabilize the ruble. Orders were sent to gas firm Gazprom (OTCPK:OGZPY), oil firms Rosneft (OTC:RNFTF) and Zarubezhneft and diamond producer Alrosa.
4. Russia on Verge of Junk as S&P Puts Rating on Negative Watch — Bloomberg, Russia may lose its investment-grade credit rating for the first time in a decade after Standard & Poor’s placed the country on CreditWatch Negative. The move “stems from what we view as a rapid deterioration of Russia’s monetary flexibility and the impact of the weakening economy on its financial system,” the agency said in a statement.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: