Economy
After falling under $50 a barrel for the first time in five years yesterday, WTI crude is back below the key price mark, down 2.4% at $48.83/bbl. WTI is now off 54% from its 2014 high set in mid-June as it continues to tumble due to a global supply glut. Brent also hit fresh five-and-a-half-year lows today, dropping 2.6% to $51.72 a barrel.

"The euro zone will look upon 2014 as a year in which recession was avoided by the narrowest of margins," announced Markit's Chris Williamson. Markit's final December Composite PMI missed an earlier flash reading of 51.7, coming in at 51.4, but beat November's 16-month low of 51.1. "The weakness of the PMI in December will add to calls for more aggressive central bank stimulus, including full-scale quantitative easing, to be undertaken as soon as possible," Williamson added.

Japanese stocks led falls across Asia today amid a selloff in global markets due to falling oil prices and concerns about the euro zone. The Nikkei closed down 3% - its worst day since mid-March. Meanwhile, China's HSBC services PMI rose to 53.4 last month from November's 53, growing at its fastest pace in three months in December. The survey helped boost shares in China, with Shanghai closing up 0.1%, after recovering from earlier losses in the session.

"I think that (Russian) sanctions must stop now," said French President Francois Hollande in an interview yesterday outlining that Western nations should instead offer to ease off on existing restrictions in exchange for progress in the peace process. German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel also signaled concerns about the effect of sanctions on Russia’s stability stating that the goal was never to push Russia into chaos. Peace talks between the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany are scheduled for Jan. 15.

Stocks
Verizon has approached AOL about a potential acquisition or joint venture to expand its mobile-video offerings, Bloomberg reports. Verizon (NYSE:VZ) hasn’t made a formal proposal to AOL (NYSE:AOL), but it is primarily interested in AOL’s programmatic advertising technology - the automated buying and selling of ads online - which two sources said could be paired with a future online-video product. Activist Starboard Value has been pushing for Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) and AOL to merge.

Samsung is reinventing itself as a supplier of Internet-connected appliances and wearables as a result of heavy competition and slumping smartphone sales. Stating the plans at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Co-Chief Executive Officer Yoon Boo Keun announced that all Samsung Electronics (OTC:SSNLF) products will be Internet-ready within five years. Samsung will invest more than $100M in developers this year to accelerate its plans.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas is also showing off some future technologies that could hit the auto industry. Likened to a luxury lounge that chauffeurs passengers autonomously, Mercedes Benz (OTCPK:DDAIF) displayed a prototype for its new concept car yesterday, called the F 015 Luxury in Motion. BMW (OTCPK:BAMXY) will unveil its wirelessly charging i8 hybrid sports car later this week, which uses a magnetic field to transmit electricity between a base pad on a garage floor and a coil on the underside of the vehicle.

Hoping to spur wider use of hydrogen to power vehicles, Toyota (NYSE:TM) says it will share its 5,700 patents related to hydrogen fuel-cells with other carmakers without charging a royalty fee. The move rivals Elon Musk's decision last June to freely license Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) electric-car patents to other automakers to help advance the development of electric-powered vehicles. Toyota is aiming to produce a small number of $57,500 hydrogen-fueled Mirai vehicles this year which will be available globally.

Johnson & Johnson has started a trial of its experimental Ebola vaccine in the U.K., saying it will produce 2M courses of the shot this year. Drugmakers are racing against the clock to develop a vaccine against Ebola to curb an outbreak that has struck more than 20K and killed more than 8K in West Africa, according to the World Health Organization. JNJ +0.4% premarket.

Coach is closing in on a deal to buy shoe company Stuart Weitzman from P-E firm Sycamore Partners for $600M, WSJ reports. A deal, which could be announced as soon as this week, would mark a rare acquisition for Coach (NYSE:COH), which has historically focused on growing on its own.

Facebook has purchased Wit.ai, creator of a voice recognition tech platform. TechCrunch speculates that Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) could use Wit.ai to "build voice control into its development platform, aid with voice-to-text input for Messenger, improve Facebook’s understanding of the semantic meaning of voice, and create a Facebook app you can navigate with your voice."

Morgan Stanley has fired one of its financial advisers after it accused him of stealing partial client data on about 10% of its wealth-management clients, totaling about 350,000, in potentially the largest data theft at a wealth-management firm. The data, which was briefly posted on the Internet, was quickly detected and removed by Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS).

The House is planning to vote Friday on legislation approving TransCanada's (NYSE:TRP) Keystone XL pipeline, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy says, predicting that President Obama would not veto the legislation if it passes both chambers of Congress as expected. The vote will mark the tenth time since 2011 that the GOP-controlled chamber has passed measures approving the controversial pipeline, which has been under review by the Obama administration for more than six years.

Today's economic calendar:

8:30 Gallup US ECI
8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
9:45 PMI Services Index
10:00 Factory Orders
10:00 ISM Non-Manufacturing Index
11:00 Global Composite PMI
11:00 Global Services PMI

Notable earnings before today's open: CMC, CVGW, LNN

Notable earnings after today's close: LNDC, MU, SHLM, SONC