The Market In 5 Minutes: Happy Memorial Day Weekend

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Macro Focus

Global stocks were mixed on Friday ahead of Federal Reserve's Chair Janet Yellen's speech at an event at Harvard University. Yellen is scheduled to talk at 1:15 p.m on Friday. For those keeping track, the event is being billed as a "conversation" with Harvard's Greg Mankiw, an economics professor.

Oil prices ticked lower early Friday ahead of the weekly rig count data that will be released later on in the trading session. The commodity traded lower after hitting resistance at the key $50 per barrel mark. Brent crude futures were lower by around $0.70 at $48.90 a barrel, while U.S. WTI crude was lower by $0.49 at $48.98 a barrel.

USA GDP (QoQ) for Q2 0.80% vs 0.90% consensus estimate. The prior reading was 0.50%.

The U.S. equity market will be closed on Monday due to the Memorial Day holiday.

BZ News Desk

Some of last night's and this morning's notable earnings:

GameStop GME Reports Q1 EPS $0.66 Vs Est $0.61, Sales $1.972B Vs Est $1.97B
Splunk SPLK Reports Q1 EPS $(0.02) vs. Est. $(0.02), Rev. $186M vs. Est. $174M
Big Lots BIG Q1 EPS $0.82 vs $0.70 est, Revenue $1.31B vs $1.30B est
Ulta Beauty ULTA Reports Q1 EPS $1.45 vs. Est. $1.29, Rev. $1.073B vs. Est. $1.03B
Palo Alto PANW Reports Inline Q3 EPS $0.42, Sales $345.8M Vs Est $339.48M
Deckers DECK Reports Q4 Adj. EPS $0.11 vs $0.06 Est., Sales $378.6M vs $362M Est.

Find out what's going on in today's market and bring any questions you have to Benzinga's PreMarket Prep.

Sell-Side Themes

Solar pair trade: Deutsche Bank downgraded Trina Solar TSL to Hold and upgraded Vivint Solar VSLR to Buy.

Sell-Side's Most Noteworthy Calls

Atlantic Equities downgraded Monsanto MON to Neutral.
Barclays upgraded NuVasive NUVA to Overweight.
Stifel upgraded Synergy Resources SYRG to Buy.
Barclays initiated coverage on Globus Medical GMED at Equal-Weight.
SunTrust started coverage on TG Therapeutics TGTX at Buy.

Deal Talk

Verizon VZ is working on its bid for Yahoo's YHOO core assets with an investment bank which was, as recently as last year, one of the U.S. internet company's top advisers, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Valeant VRX received a joint takeover approach this spring from Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical and private-equity firm TPG that the beleaguered drugmaker rejected, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Shire SHPG announced its shareholders have approved proposals relating to Shire's combination with Baxalta BXLT, which would create the leading global biotechnology company in rare diseases and other highly specialized conditions. Baxalta shareholders will receive $18.00 in cash and either 0.1482 Shire ADSs or 0.4446 Shire Ordinary shares per Baxalta share.

In The News

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would rescind "job-destroying" Obama administration environmental actions within 100 days of taking office and cancel a landmark international climate deal reached last year in Paris.

Hackers who stole $81 million from Bangladesh's central bank have been linked to an attack on a bank in the Philippines, in addition to the 2014 hack on Sony Pictures, according to a blog post from Symantec SYMC. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has blamed North Korea for the attack on Sony's SNE Hollywood studio.

A major U.S. government study on rats has found a link between cell phones and cancer, an explosive finding in the long-running debate about whether mobile phones cause health effects.

Blogosphere

Can Disney DIS succeed in China? Take a read about why the market is essential to the media giant's future.

Spotify increased revenue 80 percent last year to about $2.1 billion. Its number of users swelled from 60 million in 2014 to nearly 90 million. And the 28 million paying subscribers it has signed up represent over 40 percent of the total streaming market. However, Jeffrey Goldfarb says it may be hard to justify a higher valuation than it currently has.

Trending

For the third year in a row, the Scripps National #SpellingBee ended in a tie as Nihar Janga and Jairam Hathwar were named co-champions.

#MillionaireBooks should provided for some humorous titles.