Stock Market Live January 7: S&P 500 (VOO) Rises on Positive Employment Report
Quick Read
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ADP reports U.S. jobs growth in December.
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President Trump says Venezuela will deliver $2 billion worth of oil to the U.S.
Live Updates
Johnson Stock Is Out of Control
Melius analyst Scott R. Davis upgraded Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI | JCI Price Prediction) stock to buy with a $148 price target this morning.
JCI stock is down 6% “following comments from NVIDIA at CES around future cooling architectures that will reduce, or potentially eliminate, the need for chillers,” says Davis, but “we do not expect this ‘smart’ evolution to be as negative for cooling suppliers as the stock reactions would suggest.”
“The drivers of the current applied HVAC ‘supercycle’ are far broader than just data center[s],” according to Davis, and the stock is being too harshly punished over worries that just one of its growth drivers might peter out.
Investors don’t seem convinced by this argument, however. Johnson Controls stock that fell 6.2% yesterday is down another 0.3% today.
A Cloudy Forecast From Apogee
Glassmaker Apogee Enterprises (Nasdaq: APOG) missed earnings by three cents this morning, reporting $1.02 per share in profit for its fiscal Q3 2026. Revenue also came in short of expectations at $348.6 million.
Guidance was similarly weak, with Apogee forecasting full-year fiscal 2026 earnings between $3.40 and $3.50 per share (analysts want to see $3.67) and sales of less than $1.4 billion.
Apogee stock is down more than 12% in response. The Voo is up slightly, 0.05%.
Eggs-ellent News from Cal-Maine
Cal-Maine Foods (Nasdaq: CALM) beat earnings by a nickel this morning, reporting fiscal Q2 2026 earnings of $2.13 per share. Sales of $769.5 million, however, fell short of the consensus estimate of $814.2 million and Cal-Maine stock is down more than 3% this morning despite the earnings beat.
The Voo opened flat, with a 0% change from yesterday’s close.
This article will be updated throughout the day, so check back often for more daily updates.
After shedding 29,000 jobs in November, U.S. companies made 41,000 hires in December, according to a report from HR software company Automatic Data Processing (Nasdaq: ADP). This was less than the 48,000 jobs created that economists were forecasting, but still “a positive sign to a labor market that otherwise struggled as 2025 came to a close,” as CNBC reports this morning.
The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) is up less than 0.1% premarket on the news.
A more comprehensive report on the jobs market will come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday. Economists expect the BLS report to show even better numbers of 73,000 jobs created in December, up from 64,000 in November, and with the unemployment rate falling to 4.5%.
Venezuela news
Five days after the raid on Caracas and the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, there are significant developments in the oil market today. President Trump announced yesterday that between 30 million and 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil worth some $2 billion will be exported from Venezuela to the U.S. for refinement and sale. Moreover, oil exports to the U.S. from Venezuela will continue “indefinitely” as the new government in Caracas shifts closer to the U.S. in the absence of its old president.
Oil refiner stocks including Valero (NYSE: VLO) and Marathon (NYSE: MPC) are moving higher premarket on this news, up 3.6% and 2.5%, respectively.
President Trump stated on Truth Social that the $2 billion expected from the oil sales “will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States.”
Joel South covers large-cap stocks, dividend investing, and major market trends, with a focus on earnings analysis, valuation, and turning complex data into actionable insights for investors.
He brings more than 15 years of experience as an investor and financial journalist, including 12 years at The Motley Fool, where he served as an investment analyst, Bureau Chief, and later led the Fool.com investing news desk. He has also co-hosted an investing podcast and appeared across TV and radio discussing market trends.
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