Market Wrap: Italian Yields Halved; Facebook Lead Underwriters Down to Two; The Amazon Spat; Initial Claims Hit Recent Record

Market wrap-up for December 29th

End of the Day: Dow Jones up 135.6 to 12,287.04; Nasdaq up 23.8 to 2,613.74; S&P 500 up 13.4 to 1,263.02

The following is a brief summary of events moving markets today:

• Italy looking golden: Costs for Italy to borrow turned more favorable Thursday, though turn-out for the €8.5 billion was a little light. Of the total, €2.5 billion due 2014 were sold at 5.62 percent, down sharply from 7.89 percent in the November sale. Italy priced €2.5 billion of 2022 notes at 6.98 percent, from 7.56 percent prior. Finally, €2.0 billion of 2021 bonds and a floating-rate security were sold at the auction.
  
  
• Usual suspects for lead Facebook underwriter: Late Thursday, it was said the Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) are considered front-runners for the much-anticipated Facebook IPO. With an expected IPO of $10 billion, and typical 2.2 percent commission, that would mean a payout of $220 million to the underwriters, with the lead underwriter getting nearly half of the fee.
  
  
• Know thee not, analysts? With such rich holiday e-Commerce sales numbers all around, how well -- or not well -- did Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) do in the fourth quarter? Analysts, do you have any comments...?
  
  Of course they did. Earlier Thursday, Goldman Sachs issued a report saying Amazon most likely is going to miss top-line numbers due to lower-than-expected growth. Click here for more color from Goldman.
  
  But, Piper Jaffray and JPMorgan called out Goldman, saying Amazon probably did way better than expected. For more from Piper, click here. For more on the JPMorgan report, click here.
  
  Basically, JPMorgan said Goldman fudged the growth rate with which Amazon was beating comScore holiday sales numbers. Goldman applied a simple five-year average for its outlook.
  
  
• Rolling jobless claims hit new record: Data from the Labor Department showed a modest rise in weekly first-time applications from 366,000 to 381,000, versus the consensus of 375,000. Despite the rise in initial claims last week, the four-week average dropped to 375,000 last week, the lowest level since June '08. Claims for the week ended December 24th marked the first weekly increase since the beginning of December.
  
  The prior week reading (ended December 17th) was revised higher from 364,000.
  
  
• Just because: Verizon (NYSE: VZ) thinks paying your bill either online or over your phone is worthy of a charge. Starting on January 15th, 2012, Verizon customers opting to pay via their mobile device (with an app or browser, not phoning it in) or those who use the old-fashioned website, will be assessed a $2 "convenience" charge by Verizon. For more on the fee, click here.

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