Yahoo's board is planning a series of meetings this week to consider selling the company's core Internet business and how to make the most of its major stake in Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), WSJ reports. Growing concerns have been popping up around the company, including CEO Marissa Mayer's lack of turnaround progress, an exodus of top executives and tax uncertainty surrounding the planned Alibaba spinoff. Mayer's top job may also be on the line. YHOO +6.8% premarket.

Economy

The Shanghai Composite Index climbed 2.3% at the close on hopes the PBOC would introduce more stimulus measures by adding to the six interest rate cuts it unveiled this past year. A recent raft of indicators has signaled a deepening economic slowdown, including falling exports, declining producer prices, and slowing industrial and manufacturing activity. The benchmark's biggest rally in a month was also attributed to speculation that China would make mortgage interest payments tax-deductible in order to stimulate the domestic property market.

Puerto Rico's Government Development Bank managed to make a $354M bond payment on Tuesday, warding off a default on government guaranteed debt for at least a few more weeks. "Today's debt service payments reflect our commitment to honor our obligations notwithstanding the extreme fiscal challenges we face in an effort to facilitate a voluntary restructuring process with our creditors," GDB president Melba Acosta Febo said. The island's upcoming $1B bond payment due Janary 1 poses a far greater challenge.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is hopeful that capital controls imposed at the height of the country's debt crisis in July can be lifted in the first half of 2016. Addressing a conference of the Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce, Tsipras said his government had taken the first steps to address non-performing loans and recapitalize banks so they could start lending again to the economy.

Eurozone inflation held steady at a lower-than-expected 0.1% in November, giving further encouragement to ECB president Mario Draghi to pump up the central bank's contested bond buying program tomorrow. In March, the ECB launched a more than €1T stimulus plan running through September 2016 in order to snap a long period of low or negative inflation in the region, but given recent economic figures, that program will likely get a boost. Euro -0.4% to $1.0596.

Meanwhile, upcoming speeches from Fed Chair Janet Yellen will be critical in setting market expectations for a possible hike to the U.S. benchmark interest rate, which has held near zero since December 2008. Yellen is scheduled to speak today at the Economics Club of Washington at 12:25 p.m. ET, and then testifies tomorrow morning before the Congressional Joint Economic Committee. Also looming large is Friday's jobs figures, the last big piece of data ahead of the Fed's December 16 meeting, so today's ADP payroll report will likewise be important to the markets.

U.S. House and Senate negotiators have reached an agreement on a five-year highway bill that would also reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. The $305B bill would be partly financed by use of Fed surplus funds and a cut in the dividends received by commercial banks that own the Fed. House Speaker Paul Ryan predicts the bill will enjoy "good majority support" when it comes up for a full vote.

The United States is also deploying a new force of special operations troops to Iraq to conduct raids against Islamic State there and in neighboring Syria. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the deployment will be carried out in coordination with Iraq's government and would aid their troops and Kurdish peshmerga forces. Meanwhile, the U.K.'s House of Commons is scheduled to vote today on airstrikes on Islamic State territory in Syria, ratcheting up its campaign against the terrorist group.

Crude oil supplies rose by 1.6M barrels in the week ended November 27, according to the API, way above expectations for a decline of 1.2M barrels. The more closely watched Energy Information Administration report comes later today. Crude futures -1.1% to $41.38/bbl.

Stocks

Talk about philanthropy... Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to give 99% of his company shares, currently worth about $45B, to a charity project focusing on human potential and equality. Will that lead to a major liquidation? Likely not. Zuck said he will give away no more than $1B for the next three years, and plans to keep his majority voting position in the company for the "foreseeable future." The major announcement followed the birth of his first child, a daughter, named Max.

Nokia shareholders are widely expected to approve the $16.6B takeover of French-American rival Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) today at an extraordinary general meeting in Helsinki. The deal comes after the company obtained all necessary regulatory approvals last month from the U.S., France and China. Once the world's top mobile phone maker, Nokia (NYSE:NOK) hopes the merger will help it become the number one network equipment/service provider, with a combined revenue of nearly €25B ($26.5B).

More major tech sales? Buyout firms KKR (NYSE:KKR), Thoma Bravo and Vista Equity Partners are competing for $4B worth of Dell's assets, according to Reuters. Divesting the assets would help Dell bolster its balance sheet after it agreed in October to buy data storage company EMC Corp. (NYSE:EMC) for $67B. That deal is expected to close by October 2016, subject to approval of shareholders.

Top FIFA sponsors have published an open letter urging global soccer's governing body to enact credible reforms, days before a key meeting to finalize proposed changes to the organization. The companies - AB InBev (NYSE:BUD), Adidas (OTCQX:ADDYY), Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) and Visa (NYSE:V) - which typically pay about $100M per four-year World Cup cycle, called for greater transparency, accountability, respect for human rights, integrity, leadership and gender equality following the global corruption scandal that surfaced in May.

Starbucks pulled its holiday turkey paninis from 1,347 U.S. locations last week after the sandwiches were tied to the same tainted celery E. coli recall that struck Costco (NASDAQ:COST). The sandwiches, part of the chain's holiday lineup, were called back from certain locations in California, Oregon and Nevada, spokeswoman Erin Jane Schaeffer said. No other markets were affected, and Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) hasn't received any reports of illness.

Concluding an 18-month investigation into how drug maker Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) set the price for its expensive new hepatitis C drug, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee has confirmed that the company knew the treatment's price would be out of reach for patients and could cause "extraordinary problems" for government health programs. Sovaldi costs about $84K for a weeks-long regimen, while a second-generation version, called Harvoni, costs more than $94K. Gilead said in a statement that it disagreed with the committee's conclusions and it "responsibly and thoughtfully priced" the new drugs.

TD Ameritrade's recently announced move back to the Nasdaq (NASDAQ:NDAQ) from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:ICE) may be showing some underlying trends in the industry. The two exchanges fiercely compete for corporate listings, from courting initial public offerings to luring companies already listed on their rival exchanges. TD Ameritrade (NYSE:AMTD) will be the 27th listing transfer to Nasdaq this year, while only three listings have switched to the NYSE so far in 2015.

Following in the footsteps of JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), Citigroup (NYSE:C) is keeping its bonus pool for traders and bankers unchanged from 2014, Bloomberg reports. The decision comes at a time when some of the world’s biggest investment banks shrink businesses and compensation due to stiffer capital rules and an extended slump in fixed-income trading. Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) have already announced plans to reduce bonuses by as much as 16% and 33%, respectively, and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) just revealed plans to eliminate about a quarter of its fixed-income staff.

The drama at Volkswagen just doesn't stop. Standard & Poor's has cut VW's (OTCQX:VLKAY) credit rating for the second time in two months (to BBB+ from A-), shortly after the automaker reported that November U.S. sales fell almost 25% from a year ago. German auto supplier Robert Bosch has also been accused in a new class action suit of conspiring with Volkswagen to evade diesel emissions standards in at least 11M vehicles worldwide.

Today's Markets

In Asia, Japan -0.4% to 19938. Hong Kong +0.4% to 22480. China +2.3% to 3537. India -0.2% to 26118.
In Europe, at midday, London +0.6%. Paris +0.4%. Frankfurt +0.1%.
Futures at 6:20, Dow +0.1%. S&P +0.1%. Nasdaq +0.1%. Crude -1.1% to $41.38. Gold +0.3% to $1066.44.
Ten-year Treasury Yield flat at 2.15%

Today's Economic Calendar

7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
8:15 ADP Jobs Report
8:30 Productivity and Costs
8:30 Gallup U.S. Job Creation Index
9:00 Daniel Tarullo speech
10:30 EIA Petroleum sInventories
12:25 PM Janet Yellen speech
2:00 PM Fed's Beige Book
3:40 PM Fed's Williams: Economic Outlook