Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:
1. On pause
Stock markets took a pause from their end-of-year rally on Monday. Small-cap stocks outperformed the rest of the market, with the Russell 2000 posting a 1% gain, but the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.84% as investors sold Big Tech shares, which had been leading the market higher. While the stock market rally was taking a break, gold and bitcoin had their own rallies. Bitcoin passed the $41,000 mark to notch a 19-month high, while gold reached its highest nominal intraday level ever. Follow live market updates.
2. Getting gains
Speaking of rallies, GitLab stock jumped 14% Tuesday in premarket trading as the company released third-quarter results that impressed investors. The open-source software development platform beat on top and bottom lines in the third quarter and issued strong guidance for the current quarter. Those earnings mark the first time GitLab — which went public in 2021 — has posted an adjusted operating profit. Meanwhile, GitLab's revenue grew 32% year over year in the quarter, which ended on Oct. 31.
3. Twilio layoffs
In less positive news for software providers, Twilio said Monday that it would lay off about 5% of its workforce as part of a broader plan to streamline the company. The cuts will affect about 300 employees, based on Twilio's headcount in its recent regulatory filing, and CEO Jeff Lawson said they will be focused in the company's Data and Applications unit. That's the same unit that activist investors have targeted in the past. Lawson also said in a letter that the layoffs would eliminate "many" sales positions for its Flex digital engagement product. Twilio has now had three rounds of layoffs in slightly more than a year.
4. Going down
Ratings agency Moody's downgraded its outlook on China's government credit ratings to negative from stable. In making the decision, Moody's said it was concerned about rising debt risks as Beijing's fiscal support for distressed local governments and state-owned enterprises could diminish the country's overall strength. "The outlook change also reflects the increased risks related to structurally and persistently lower medium-term economic growth and the ongoing downsizing of the property sector," the agency said. Despite the downgrade, Moody's retained China's A1 long-term rating on the country's sovereign bonds.
5. Hold the phone
Nokia shares plunged Tuesday on the Helsinki exchange after the telecommunications company lost out on a major deal with U.S. giant AT&T. AT&T said it would instead partner with Nokia's Swedish rival Ericsson on a nearly $14 billion project to deploy technology in the U.S. that AT&T expects to use for 70% of its wireless network traffic by late 2026. Stockholm-listed shares of Ericsson, meanwhile, were up more than 7%. The new project means Nokia, which is already facing a troubled financial picture, will lose market share as a supplier to AT&T, and existing Nokia equipment will be replaced in several places.
— CNBC's Hakyung Kim, Jordan Novet, Rohan Goswami, Clement Tan and Jenni Reid contributed to this report.
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