Here are five things you need to know this morning:
Fed day: Happy Fed day to all those who celebrate. U.S. markets are tentatively higher this morning in anticipation of the Federal Reserve’s last interest rate decision of the year. The Fed is widely expected to hold on rates, but of course the focus will be on the outlook for rates in 2024. Right now the market is pricing in 100 to 125 basis points worth of cuts next year. How hard will the Fed push back on that? That is the main tension point. This morning we got a read of producer prices that showed slower price growth than anticipated across the board, so that will feed the doves. The fireworks pop off at 2 p.m. ET, grab the popcorn!
Is there a pill for this?: Shares of Pfizer are poised to open at their lowest level since 2020 and may even break below that this morning after an abysmal forecast for 2024. Pfizer has already been in the penalty box after seeing weakness in COVID vaccine and treatment sales and then scrapping its plans for a twice-daily weight-loss drug. The market was hoping that Pfizer’s big acquisition of Seagen would help to offset this. They were disappointed this morning when Pfizer came out with sales and profit forecast well below expectations and made clear that Seagen would not be able to fill the void left by a struggling COVID business.
Not-so autopilot: Shares of Tesla are a little weaker this morning after the company announced a recall. Tesla will need to update software for nearly all of the vehicles it sold in the U.S. to fix issues with its autopilot system. The agency says its investigation found autopilot’s method of ensuring that drivers are paying attention can be inadequate and can lead to misuse of the system. Tesla says it will issue an "over the air" software update that will limit how autopilot can be used.
Dollars-ama: We will watch shares of Dollarama this morning. The discount retailer posted better-than expected-sales and profit growth in its latest results. Comparable sales grew more than 11 per cent and the company is boosting its sales forecast for next year as well. It now sees between 11 to 12 per cent sales growth vs the previous outlook of 10 to 11 per cent. The stock is sitting near all-time highs and has been a beneficiary of the trade-down trend from consumers looking for bargains.
Notable Call: Shares of Cogeco could move higher today after Veritas upgraded the stock, one day after Rogers sold its stake. Veritas says they recently lamented that management had no interest in buyback shares even at decade lows, but with this transaction, Cogeco is going to be buying about five per cent of its shares. “Cogeco shares are extremely cheap,” says analyst Desmond Lau in the upgrade note. “At such a depressed valuation, as long as the company focuses on debt reduction over the next year, it's not hard to pencil out a double-digit return.”