Major indices are in the green this Wednesday morning as hopes for a tax cut remain high despite a setback for the Trump agenda last night with the defeat of Roy Moore by Doug Jones for an Alabama senate seat. Us consumer inflation slowed in November. This tricky indicator often cuts both ways, meaning good things for consumers, but possibly indicating that retailers are worried about the volume of holiday sales. Finisar (FNSR) is up 27.55% on the news that Apple (AAPL) will be taking a huge, $390 million stake in the company. At present, the S&P 500 is up 0.25%, the DJIA is up 0.47%, and the NASDAQ is up 0.42%. West Texas Intermediate crude is trading at $57.11. Bitcoin is at $16,727 on Bitstamp. Industries doing well today include leisure products, personal products, and aerospace & defense. Industries showing weakness include healthcare technology, media, airlines. The VIX is down 0.9% to 9.83 after closing on Tuesday at 9.92. The most heavily traded options this morning are for the iShares MSCI Japan ETF (EWJ), with 30,010 June-15 60 calls on the board. The total put/call ratio as of 10:00 AM was 0.68 (315,157/215,404). The advancers/decliners ratio for NYSE stocks is 1,773/1,123 while the advancers/decliners ratio for NASDAQ stocks is 1,927/895.
