S&P closes strong 2020 with winning session heading into 2021 Light holiday volume became even lighter in the final day of 2020, but stocks finished mostly higher in keeping with the trend for the year. While the world unquestionably had a challenging 2020 in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wall Street had a stellar year, driven by stimulus, Fed accommodation and the eventual roll out of COVID-19 vaccines, which has allowed investors to look past near-term uncertainty as virus case counts continue rising and restrictions continue to be in place worldwide. ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., initial jobless claims declined 19,000 to 787,000 in the week ended December 26. Markets in Japan, South Korea, and numerous European countries are closed today, while early closes are scheduled for the U.K., Ireland, Euronext, and Spain to celebrate the New Year's Eve holiday. Data from the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering shows there are now about 83M confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, including nearly 20M in the U.S., and 1.8M deaths due to the disease, including about 343,000 in the U.S. TOP NEWS: Shares of Exxon Mobil ($XOM) were 1% lower after the company published an 8-K last night that confirms a tailwind from U.S. and international gas prices. In the same regulatory filing, the company repeated its previously communicated guidance that it may take up to $20B in impairment charges in Q4 due to what it had said was a "removal of less strategic assets from its development plan." In M&A news, The Wall Street Journal's Cara Lombardo, Dana Cimilluca and Lukas I. Alpert reported that hedge fund Alden Global Capital, the largest shareholder of Tribune Publishing ($TPCO) with a 32% stake, is looking to purchase the newspaper chain. Subsequently, Alden confirmed that on December 14 the firm delivered a non-binding proposal and inquiry letter to the board of directors of Tribune Publishing in respect of a potential offer by Alden and/or certain funds or other affiliates thereof to purchase the company at a price per share equal to $14.25. Late Wednesday, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative said it would raise tariffs on certain EU products, including aircraft components and wines from France and Germany. The Trump Administration has implemented tariffs on additional products from the European Union as part of a long-running dispute over subsidies to Airbus ($EADSY) and Boeing ($BA), Bloomberg's Shawn Donnan, Charlotte Ryan and Jonathan Stearns noted. Meanwhile, Microsoft ($MSFT) said in a blog post earlier this afternoon that, like other SolarWinds ($SWI) customers, the company has been actively looking for indicators of the Solorigate actor and shared an update from its ongoing internal investigation. While the company said its investigation into its own environment "has found no evidence of access to production services or customer data" and "no indications that our systems were used to attack others," Microsoft added that it "detected unusual activity with a small number of internal accounts and upon review, we discovered one account had been used to view source code in a number of source code repositories." Reuters reported that drugmakers including Pfizer ($PFE), GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) and Sanofi ($SNY) are planning to hike U.S. list prices on more than 200 drugs in the United States on Wednesday. Nearly all of the price increases will be below 10%, and around half of them are in the range of 4%-6%, Reuters said, citing data from healthcare research company 3 Axis Advisors. MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Red Lion Hotels ($RLH), which rose over 28% after it agreed to be acquired by Sonesta for $3.50 per share in cash. Also higher was LendingClub ($LC), which gained more than 26% after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gave its approval to the online lender's agreement to purchase Radius Bancorp, and its wholly owned subsidiary Radius Bank. Among the notable losers was FuboTV ($FUBO), which declined 16% after Kerrisdale Capital stated in a report that shares of the company are trading at a valuation "completely unmoored from reality." Also lower was HC2 Holdings ($HCHC), which fell 3.3% after announcing that it has agreed to sell its majority-owned clean energy subsidiary Beyond6 to Mercuria Investments US for approximately $169M. Reviewing Thursday's economic data:Initial claims for the week ending December 26 decreased by 19,000 to 787,000 (Briefing.com consensus 800,000). Continuing claims for the week ending December 19 decreased by 103,000 to 5.219 million.That's the lowest level of continuing claims since March, yet the key takeaway and harder-hitting reality is that initial claims were just 220,000 in the same period a year ago while continuing claims were just 1.728 million.Nasdaq Composite +43.6% YTDRussell 2000 +18.4% YTDS&P 500 +16.3% YTDDow Jones Industrial Average +7.3% YTDMarket SnapshotDow30606.42+196.92(0.65%)Nasdaq12888.29+18.28(0.14%)SP 5003756.07+24.03(0.64%)10-yr Note +1/320.918NYSEAdv 1843 Dec 1269 Vol 806.6 mlnNasdaqAdv 1739 Dec 2010 Vol 4.7 blnIndustry WatchStrong: Financials, Utilities, Real Estate, Health CareWeak: Energy, Consumer DiscretionaryMoving the Market-- S&P 500 and Dow close at record highs-- Strong finish amid reduced market participation ahead of New Year's Day-- Relative underperformance in small-caps and technology stocksDisclosure: I may trade in the ticker symbols mentioned, both long or short. 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