Disney Drives Dow Jones Industrial Average Futures Higher

The 25 Best Stocks For Christmas

Dec 21, 2015 at 8:52 AM

With just a few sessions to go before the Christmas holiday, Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) futures are solidly higher, trying to shake off a brutal performance to close last week. Blue chip Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) should help lead the way, up 1.6% pre-market after a record-setting "Star Wars" debut. Meanwhile, crude oil remains in focus, with January-dated futures last seen just above Friday's six-year low.

Continue reading for more on today's market, including:

Need to do some last-minute holiday shopping? These 25 stocks will make the perfect gift.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.'s (NYSE:WMT) latest ploy to attract last-minute holiday shoppers.
How Major League Baseball uses put options, courtesy of Schaeffer's contributor Adam Warner.

And now, on to the numbers…

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Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) are more than 91 points above fair value.

5 Things You Need to Know Today

Chinese property stocks rallied on mounting stimulus hopes, while a strengthening yen continued to weigh on Tokyo-listed exporters.
The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) saw 1.2 million call contracts traded on Friday, compared to 927,371 put contracts. The resultant single-session equity put/call ratio remained at 0.77, while the 21-day moving average edged up to 0.72.
Ericsson (ADR) (NASDAQ:ERIC) is up 5.8% pre-market, after the company signed a global patent licensing agreement with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), ending a year-long dispute. Meanwhile, concerns about iPhone sales prompted AAPL to cut the prices of its 6s and 6s Plus models by up to 16% in India.
Former KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:KBIO) CEO Martin Shkreli blamed last week's arrest for securities fraud on his drug-price hikes and larger-than-life public image. "'Trying to find anything we could to stop him' was the attitude of the government," he told The Wall Street Journal (subscription required).
Fresh off last Friday's acquisition announcement, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is up 0.9% ahead of the open on a bullish Barron's article (subscription required), which argues the stock could rally as much as 30% over the next 18 months due to its cloud-computing unit.

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Earnings and Economic Data

There are no major economic or earnings reports scheduled for today. To see what else is coming up on this week's agenda, click here.

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