“Don’t blindly follow someone, follow market and try to hear what it is telling you.” “You never know what kind of setup market will present to you, your objective should be to find opportunity where risk reward ratio is best.” — unknown

1. Market Highlights from 2019 — it was another exciting year for investors in 2019 amid a stock market rally that saw the S&P 500 surge 28%, for the biggest gain since 2013. Easing trade tensions with China, a shift in monetary policy at the Fed, and improving economic outlook all renewed investors’ faith, while safer assets like gold and bonds also soared. Other notable highlights: Tech domination, M&A activity, streaming wars, vaping crackdown, American energy independence, hot IPO market, the EV revolution, 737 MAX crisis, record holiday shopping and getting Brexit over the line.
2. Oil Service Firm McDermott in Bankruptcy Talks with Lenders — WSJ reported that the engineering firm is in talks with its lenders to file for bankruptcy within weeks. The group may provide an approximately $2B loan to keep the company’s operations running during bankruptcy, while the financing would afford McDermott the ability to provide letters of credit, most of which expire within a year and need to be renewed for the firm to continue its work on projects.
3. People’s Bank of China’s Injection of Fresh Liquidity into Banking System to Start the New Year — the festivities kicked off in Asia in the new year, where the PBOC slashed its required cash reserve ratio for commercial lenders by 50 basis points, unleashing about 800B yuan ($115B) of liquidity into the financial system. The move to shore up the local economy saw the Shanghai Composite Index end the session up 1.2%, adding to the overall positive sentiment ahead of the signing of a ‘Phase One’ U.S.-China trade deal on Jan. 15.
4. More Drugmakers Hike U.S. Prices as 2020 Begins — the drug price hike of 2020 has commenced, with costs rising for more than 250 medications, according to data analyzed by 3 Axis Advisors. Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY), Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD), and Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB) hiked U.S. list prices on more than 50 drugs on New Year’s Day, adding to the couple hundred increases from drugmakers including Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) and Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY). While nearly all of the price increases are below 10% and the median price increase is around 5%, more early year price increases could still be announced.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: