REUTERS/ Kai Pfaffenbach
A street vendor offers buttons with pictures of Nelson Mandela outside the house where Mandela resided in when he lived in the township of Soweto December 9, 2013.
- Asian markets were relatively stagnant in overnight trading. Japan's Nikkei closed down 0.25%; Hong Kong's Hang Seng, 0.28%; and Korea's KOSPI, 0.35%. European markets were slightly higher, and U.S. futures were pointing up too.
- Today at 10:00 a.m. ET, we'll get the Job Openings And Labor Market Turnover Survey (JOLTS), the less market-moving monthly jobs report from the BLS. Economists expect JOLTS to report 3.905 million job openings in October, down from 3.913 million in November. "Labor turnover remains low, but it has been edging up," wrote High Frequency Economics' Jim O'Sullivan.
- Also at 10:00 a.m., data on U.S. wholesale inventories will be released. The report highlights the share of unsold goods held by wholesalers. Economists are expecting a 0.3% increase in October, down from the last print of 0.4%. High wholesale inventories indicates that consumers are unwilling to purchase goods (as wholesalers let inventories grow), while declining wholesale inventories means retailers are buying more to meet hefty demand.
- Some good data out of China today. Industrial output climbed 10% in November from the year previous, falling slightly below analyst expectations. Retail sales, on the other hand, came in at 13.7%, besting economist predictions. In Australia, however, monthly business confidence slipped to a print of 5 in the NAB survey. That was down from 6 in October and 12 in September after the new conservative coalition was elected.
- U.S. regulators are ready to adopt the Volcker Rule, a key Wall Street reform which "prohibits banks from betting on financial markets with their own money, a practice known as proprietary trading," reports Reuters' Douwe Miedema. "Banks worry the rule will erode profits, and make it harder to engage in businesses that are exempt under the law such as hedging against market risks, facilitating client trading - or market-making - and security underwriting," according to the report.
- The U.S. government lost $10.5 billion on the 2009 bailout of General Motors, the AP reports. According to the Treasury department, the government - which sold its last share - was able to recover $39 billion of the $49.5 billion financial aid package. A recent report showed that the plan saved 1.2 million jobs.
- Lululemon founder Chip Wilson will step down as chairman, "clearing the way for a new chief executive to move the maker of popular yoga gear past recent supply problems and expand overseas," the Wall Street Journal's Suzanne Kapner and Joann S. Lublin report. CEO Christine Day will also leave the company when the new CEO - former TOMS Shoes' Lauren Potdevin - takes over in January. Day announced her intention to resign in June. The company has struggled with some bad PR as of late, such as the "see-through pants" saga. Wilson raised eyebrows by suggesting that customers' bodies may have been to blame for yoga pants issues.
- World leaders and tens of thousands of South Africans have descended on Johannesburg's FNB stadium for Nelson Mandela's memorial. Barack Obama will speak at the service, as will Cuban president Raul Castro and Andrew Mlangeni, a friend and fellow inmate of Mandela's at Robben Island.
- A reportedly tearful Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra asked protestors to stop after she called for a snap election, Reuters reports. After weeks of violent demonstrations calling for her resignation, "Yingluck insisted on Tuesday she would not step down and said she would continue her duties as caretaker prime minister until the election, which is set for February 2."
- Market watchers are still bracing for the possibility that the Fed will begin to taper its asset purchasing program this year. In an interview on CNBC, JP Morgan's Tom Lee said that investors are warming to the idea of a Dectaper. "I think a few weeks ago investors would have been pretty concerned about the idea of [a December] taper because the data didn't really give them comfort that the economy was at escape velocity," he said. "With Friday's jobs report and some of the other ones we've had recently, you know I think investors are getting comfortable if it does happen in December."