December gold settles lower, books 1st weekly drop in three weeks

Gold futures closed modestly lower on Friday, in shortened trade following the Thanksgiving holiday Thursday. December gold settled down $4.90, or 0.4%, at $1,287.30 an ounce. After an up-and-down week, the yellow metal logged a roughly 0.7% weekly decline, marking its first weekly decline in three weeks, according to FactSet data. The exchange-traded SPDR Gold Trust , meanwhile, slipped 0.2%. Metals markets settled at 12:30 p.m. Eastern on Black Friday.

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London police respond to reports of gunfire in busy shopping district

London police on Friday said they were responding to reports of shots fired in the city’s busy shopping district and at an underground train station. There were no reports of casualties, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement. . “Police have responded as if the incident is terrorist related,” with both armed and unarmed officers on the scene, the Met said. Reports came in shortly after 4:30 p.m. local time about shots fired on Oxford Street and at the Oxford Circus Tube station. “Please continue to avoid the Oxford Street and Regent Street area. If you are in the area, go into a building and stay inside until further notice,” British Transport Police said on Twitter. The Oxford Circus and Bond Street tube stations were closed.

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Nvidia benefits from rising cryptocurrency prices, analyst says

A “notable shift” higher in cryptocurrency prices should be good for chip maker Nvidia Corp. , RBC Capital Markets analyst Mitch Steves said in a note Friday. A sharp rise for digital currency like ether, Monero, zCash and bitcoin gold in the past three weeks has helped bring down the time gap between mining these currencies and getting paid, Steves contends, which should at least maintain demand for Nvidia graphics processing units miners are using. “For illustrative purposes, when the price of Ethereum was at $300 the payback period was ~9.4 months; today, it is now ~5.6 months–a change we view as material,” Steves wrote. Nvidia, as well as rival Advanced Micro Devices Corp. , have received a boost this year from sales to cryptocurrency miners, who use their GPUs to help create the digital currency. Nvidia shares have more than doubled this year and AMD shares are up 0.2% while the S&P 500 index has gained 16%. RBC has a buy rating and $250 price target on Nvidia stock, which was trading about 0.8% higher Friday.

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Uber seeks appeal to U.K. Supreme Court over workers’ rights ruling

Uber on Friday asked for permission to appeal to the U.K. Supreme Court in a workers’ rights dispute, according to multiple media reports. The ride-hailing company is trying to reverse a recent U.K. appeals court decision that gives Uber drivers the right to be paid the national minimum wage and other benefits.

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Euro breaches $1.19 level for first time since September

The euro rallied past the $1.19 mark on Friday, breaking that level viewed as psychologically significant for the first time since late September. The common currency has been gaining momentum all week thanks to supportive economic data, underlined on Friday by better-than-expected German Ifo indicators. The Ifo indexes are a closely watched measure of business sentiment in the eurozone’s largest economy. One euro last bought $1.1918, compared with $1.1850 late Thursday.

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IHS Markit says U.S. economy cools a bit in November

A pair of surveys of American companies shows that businesses grew in November at the slowest pace in four months, according to IHS Markit. The firm’s flash manufacturing PMI dipped to 53.8 this month from 54.6. And the flash services PMI fell to 54.3 from 54.6. Still, any number above 50% indicates more companies are growing instead of shrinking. “US businesses reported another month of solid growth in November, putting the economy on course for a reasonable, though by no means stellar, fourth quarter,” said Chris Williamson, chief economist at IHS Markit. “Current PMI readings are broadly consistent with GDP growing at an annualised rate of just over 2%.”

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Tesla unveils pricing for Semi big rig, starting at $150,000

Tesla Inc. said over the Thanksgiving break that the base price of its new semi-autonomous electric Semi big rig with a 500-mile range, which was unveiled last week, will start at $180,000. The 300-mile version will start at $150,000. The expected Founders series price is $200,000. Production of the highly-anticipated Semi is expected to begin in 2019, which a base reservation cost of $20,000. Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and trucking company J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. have said they have preordered the Semi. Tesla’s stock slipped 0.1% in morning trade. It has eased 0.9% in the week since unveiling the Semi, while the S&P 500 has gained 0.9%.

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S&P 500, Nasdaq open at all-time intraday highs to kick off Black Friday trade

U.S. stock indexes opened slightly higher, trading at or near record territory, in what will be an abbreviated trading session, as investors focused on retailers on Black Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 37 points, or 0.2%, at 23,566, the S&P 500 index climbed 0.2% at 2,602, touching an all-time high in intraday record at 2,602.25. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 9 points, or 0.1%, at 6,876, setting an intraday record at 6,879.25. U.S. equity markets will close at 1 p.m. Eastern, while the bond market will finish up at 2 p.m., the day after Thanksgiving was observed. In corporate news, shares of Wal-Mart , up 0.5%, and Macy’s Inc. stock, up 2.4%, benefiting from bullish bets as investors wagered on strong buying ahead of the holiday season.

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Nutanix’s stock surges; RBC boosts price target ahead of results

Shares of Nutanix Inc. surged 1.9% in premarket trade Friday, putting them on track to open at a 9-month high, after RBC Capital raised its price target ahead of what is expected to be “solid” fiscal first-quarter results due out next week. Analyst Matthew Hedberg raised his target to $37 frmo $37, which is 29% above Wednesday’s closing price, from $34. He’s had a outperform rating on the stock since he started covering it Oct. 25, 2016, about a month after the company went public. “Sentiment around the stock has improved since last quarter, but we still think expectations and valuation remain reasonable as we look for the opportunity around the pivot to software to be outlined and understood by investors,” Hedberg wrote in a note to clients. Nutanix is scheduled to report quarterly results after the Nov. 30 close, with analysts surveyed by FactSet expected to report a per-share loss that narrows to 26 cents from 37 cents a year ago, and revenue that rises to $266.9 million from $166.8 million. The stock has soared 55.5% over the past three months, while the S&P 500 has rallied 6.5%.

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RYB Education’s stock tumbles toward new low after allegations of ‘improper conduct’

Shares of Beijing-based RYB Education Inc. plummeted 37% toward a new low in active premarket trade Friday, after the childhood education services provider said police started an investigation over allegations of “improper conduct” toward children enrolled in an RYB-operated kindergarten in Beijing. Trading volume topped 960,000 shares about 90 minutes before the open, which is already more than double the full-day average. RYB said it was cooperating with the investigation, and have suspended the staff who were allegedly involved. The company said the investigation has not yet been concluded. Separately, RYB authorized a stock repurchase program to buy back $50 million worth of U.S.-listed shares over the next 12 months. RYB’s stock went public Sept. 27 at an IPO price of $18.50. The stock has gained 3.1% from where it closed on its first day through Wednesday, while the S&P 500 has gained 3.6%.

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