Express   reportedly hired services of investment bank Lazard Frères for raising financing to get through the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Chief Executive Timothy Baxter’s comments to the Wall Street Journal , Express is not considering a bankruptcy filing; Baxter said the retailer  continues to take “decisive and appropriate action” for liquidity management throughout the pandemic."

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal indicated that Express is looking to boost its cash reserves until enough of the U.S. population is vaccinated against COVID-19 so as to allow more shopping at physical stores and to resume office work.

Tesla founder Elon Musk indicated that Apple Inc.  was offered an opportunity to buy the electric carmaker in 2018.

Referring to a Twitter discussion on a Reuters report that Apple is considering launching a self-driving electric car with 'next level' battery technology, Musk said he reached out to Apple during the "darkest days" of development of Model 3 to talk about a potential deal.).

Musk called the Apple electric car report as "strange, if true”.

December Outlook for Technology Sector

Congress approved a coronavirus economic relief package and government spending bill Monday night.

Both chambers agreed to the more than $2 trillion legislation in votes, including $900 billion in pandemic aid and a $1.4 trillion measure to fund the government through Sept. 30.

The coronavirus stimulus package includes $300 weekly supplemental federal benefits to the jobless, more small business loans, $600 direct payments to individuals and funds for distribution of Covid-19 vaccine, among other items.

A leading gauge of U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly dropped in December to a four-month low, amid surging coronavirus cases that have recently propelled tighter restrictions in many states.

The Conference Board index fell to 88.6 in December, from a downwardly revised 92.9 in November.However, the expectations sub-index rose from a four-year low.

The Conference Board latest survey results differ from the University of Michigan’s measure of U.S. consumer sentiment that increased in early December to the second-highest level since March.

Streaming television company fuboTV  got an extremely optimistic outlook from analysts at Needham. 

While analysts at Needham maintained their  buy rating, they doubled their price target on fuboTV shares to $60 per share. 

Analyst Laura Martin noted that they view FUBO as an “inexpensive” option for public investors to participate in the US consumer shift toward OTT and Streaming TV.

Payments technology companies Square  and PayPal  shares  got price target hikes at Deutsche Bank.

Deutsche Bank analyst Bryan Keane boosted his price target on Square to $255 from $215, and on PayPal to $275 from $234. Keane has a buy rating on both these stocks.

According to Keane’s note to investors, a survey of 817 U.S. mobile tech-savvy participants found that the adoption of e-commerce and mobile payment services has accelerated, driven by the pandemic and expanded fintech value proposition.Keane noted that the use of online channels for retail physical goods purchases across the most tech-savvy U.S. mobile payment participants has touched about 83%, according to the survey.

The analyst said that PayPal, Venmo and Square "are well positioned to capture the accelerated shift to online and omnichannel".

The Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) gained 56% from its October low to its high a few weeks ago.Unfortunately the weekly stochastic readings made a bearish crossover last week and appear as though they may be headed out of overbought territory—a possible bearish signal.

The SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP) experienced an even greater gain, rallying 66.9% from its October low to its high two weeks ago.

Shares of sneaker giant Nike Inc. climbed to an all-time high Monday, following the release of its  stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings.

Thanks to strength in online sales, Nike’s earnings for the 3 months ending November came in at.78 cents(up from 70 cents a share a year earlier), beating the 62 cents expected by analysts polled by Refinitiv.

Revenue grew +9% year-over-year to $11.24 billion, also topping analysts’ forecast of $10.56 billion.

The company’s  online sales for its namesake brand surged +84% during the quarter, as more people frequented  its website during the coronavirus pandemic.According to the company, digital sales growth helped to offset declines in its own brick-and-mortar stores and at its wholesale partners .

 Nike was allocating investments toward its own stores, websites, and key wholesale partners, and therefore reducing dependence on retail partner – even before the pandemic struck.

Aerojet Rocketdyne  shares climbed on Monday, following news that  Lockheed Martin  agreed to  buy Aerojet in a deal valued at $4.4 billion.

Lockheed will pay $51 a share for each Aerojet share, a 21% premium from Friday’s closing price.What’s more, Aerojet announced a $5 a share special dividend to be paid on March 24, to shareholders of record as of March 10 -- thereby bringing the total amount to be received by Aerojet shareholders to $56 a share.

The transaction will allow Lockheed’s defense products to expand into Aerojet’s systems for missiles, rockets and other space and defense applications.

The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2021, subject to approvals from regulators and from Aerojet’s shareholders.

On Friday, the Federal Reserve indicated that Wall Street banks were in sound condition, thereby giving permission to banks  to resume stock buybacks starting in the first quarter. 

33 largest banks in the nation got a major validation from the Fed’s second round of stress tests, despite the macroeconomic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.Nevertheless, buybacks of company stock will be allowed again, with some limits.

According to the Fed’s latest decision, the amount a bank will be allowed to pay shareholders or buy back in its stock will depend on the banks’ earnings over the past year.

Diamondback agreed to acquire Guidon in a cash-stock deal, which includes 10.63 million shares of Diamondback common stock, and $375 million cash to be probably funded through a combination of cash on hand and the company’s credit facility.The deal would value Guidon at $862 million.

The pending QEP acquisition, combined  with the previously announced pending acquisition of assets from Guidon will bring Diamondback’s total leasehold interests to over 276,000 net surface acres in the Midland Basin (429,000 Midland and Delaware Basin net acres)

Scorecards And Group Analysis

Cybersecurity company Avast made an analysis of the extensions last month, following a study by Czech researchers at CZ.NIC.According to these researchers, some of those extensions  have been active since at least December 2018.

Malicious activities such as redirecting users to ads and phishing sites, collecting personal data and browsing history, and downloading other malware onto the host device have apparently occurred in the process.

Financial advisory and broking solutions company Willis Towers Watson announced a partnership with data analytics company Polecat Intelligence Ltd.The partnership aims to develop insurance & risk management solutions to help organisations/clients  respond to the rapidly changing and complex challenges they face.

Polecat’s Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will support Willis Towers Watson in areas such as life sciences, reputational and product recall risk as well as D&O. Real-time risk analysis from unstructured data, for example, will be a key feature of the collaboration.

Willis hopes to leverage Polecat’s data expertise in helping clients with risk mitigation.

James Lawn, co-CEO of Polecat, said, “Polecat exists to provide foresight for Corporate Boards and Executive Leadership teams to make better decisions on emerging risks and opportunities.

"ABNB created the short-term rental market and is the clear leader in the space.The strong brand has created a powerful flywheel for its two-sided marketplace (guests and hosts) and enables the company to generate the significant majority of its traffic directly, which is unparalleled in the online travel sector," analyst Shyam Patil wrote. 

The proposed contract will be cash-settled.

Amid the success of Bitcoin futures and options, CME Group will add Ether futures to its cryptocurrency risk-management solutions.This is expected to offer the clients a tool to trade and hedge this digital currency.

In January 2020, CME launched bitcoin options and options on SOFR.