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General Motors is driving forward after receiving a Fed-sponsored gift of sorts, but nobody including Santa, has come to the rescue of other investors. As of 11:05 ET the “Cubes” (QQQQ) and “SPYder” (SPY) are fractionally mixed from a decliner of 0.17% to a seasonally quiet gainer of .28%.

In Friday’s pseudo trading session, GM’s (GM) approval by the Fed to allow its financing arm GMAC into the not-so-elite club of bank holding company, is the story of the day. Shares are up 13% to 3.68 as the designation does provide crucial access to monies under the $700B Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP.

Elsewhere, more aggressive discounting of a deeper and longer recession continues to gain traction in instruments like the US Oil Fund (USO), but not oil futures in Friday’s first half. In somewhat askew conditions, USO is off $0.55 near $28, while crude futures trade higher by $1.70 near $37 a barrel. A couple fresh and dueling reports are acting as potential catalysts. For the bulls, it appears the United Arab Emirates or UAE has moved in sync with Saudi Arabia in deepening its production cuts following OPEC’s historic production cut pledge last week.

And for the bears in oil, grizzly prognostications from the CEO of Gulf Oil that US Light Sweet could reach as low as $20 per barrel were voiced on CNBC this morning. Hmm, maybe the bears still busy in USO turned up the volume on CNBC, while bulls on the typically noisy NYMEX had only headlines with which to work from?

On the corporate side, shoppers were seen dropping according to MasterCard’s (MA) SpendingPulse. The combined misfortune of less calendar days to pull out the credit card or Almighty Dollar, as well as severe weather conditions across much of the US leading into Christmas day resulted in a preliminary 5.5% - 8.0% drop in sales during the key holiday season.

Related, but a bright spot within the retail sector, Amazon (AMZN) reportedly had its best holiday season ever according to its bean counters. The internet goliath likely enjoyed some of its additional sales courtesy of Mother Nature and at the expense of its brick and mortar peers. That said, the company reported more than 6.3M items were ordered on December 15 at the peak of the seasonal shopping spree.

Intraday, shares of AMZN are demonstrating relative strength with gains of $0.92 to $52.35, but well-removed from “early bull” specials of $53.95 with no money back guarantees. On the option side, most popular with traders are the OTM January 55 calls. Nearly 3,000 contracts versus open interest have traded on ‘mostly fair’ implieds of 66% and premium of $2.18—but already likely being returned by more than a few of those same out-the-gate shoppers looking for bargains.

And finally, exiting the lunchtime hour and the major averages continue to flicker fractionally in listless conditions. Santa remains M.I.A. for many and most bulls, but with the indices sporting multiday pullbacks that can only be described as orderly, albeit slightly disappointing—one small platform for “Obamaistically” seeing 2009 as shaping up already, might be appreciated.
 
 
Chris Tyler
Staff Writer & Options Strategist
Optionetics.com ~ Your Options Education Site
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