Stock futures point to a muted open
U.S. stocks are expected to open flat on Thursday as the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) prepares to meet later in the day to vote whether to authorize use of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX).
Traders are also awaiting data on weekly jobless claims, due to be released by the U.S. Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. ET. Expectations are for initial claims to have jumped to 725,000 from 712,000 last week.
As of 6:00 a.m. ET, futures tied to the blue-chip Dow gained 60 points, or 0.2% to 30,123. Those for the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 were little changed.
Airbnb prices IPO at $60 per share
Airbnb is scheduled to become a public company later today in one of the hottest IPO of the year.
The home-sharing startup priced its shares at $68 each late Wednesday, well above its previously guided range of between $56 and $60.
The company sold 51.5 million shares in the IPO, raising about $3.7 billion and gaining a market value of $47 billion.
Airbnb will be available to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select under the ticker symbol “ABNB”.
DoorDash shares surge in NYSE debut
Shares of DoorDash (NYSE: DASH) surged on Wednesday in the company’s first day of trading on Wall Street, signaling huge interest in a company that thrived during the coronavirus pandemic.
The food delivery service priced its initial public offering at $102 per share, above an already upped price range of $90 to $95 per share.
Shares of the San Francisco, California-based company closed at $189.51, 86% above the IPO price.
The rally pushed DoorDash’s market cap to nearly $59 billion, about four times higher than its private market valuation of $16 billion in June.
FTC and 46 states file antitrust lawsuit against Facebook
Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) could be forced divest Instagram and WhatsApp after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a group of states led by New York filed lawsuits accusing the social media giant of violating antitrust law.
Both Republican and Democratic attorneys general from 48 U.S. states are behind one of the suits announced on Wednesday. The second lawsuit was filed by the FTC.
The twin lawsuits accuse the company of stifling innovation by cutting off platform services to rivals and that it sought to maintain its monopoly power by acquiring potential competitors, including Instagram and WhatsApp.
Attorneys are asking a federal court to intervene by possibly ordering Facebook sell or spin off Instagram and WhatsApp.
Facebook general counsel Jennifer Newstead released a statement dismissing the suits as “revisionist history”
As of writing, shares of Facebook were down 0.89% to $275.46 apiece in the pre-market trading session Thursday.
