STOCKS GO NOWHERE: Here's what you need to know

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Peter Nicholls / Reuters

Stocks didn't budge much ahead of Friday's US jobs report, the final report on 2016.

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The Dow and the S&P 500 closed slightly in the red, while the Nasdaq barely scraped into the green.

First up, the scoreboard:

  • Dow: 19,895.93, -46.23, (-0.23%)
  • S&P 500: 2,268.07, -2.59, (-0.11%)
  • Nasdaq: 5,488.86, +11.68, (+0.22%)
  • US 10-year yield: 2.359%, -0.093
  • WTI Crude oil: $53.66, +0.40, +0.75%

1. The final jobs report of 2016 will be released on Friday. Wall Street is expecting nonfarm payrolls to increase by 170,000, the unemployment rate to tick up to 4.7%, and average hourly earnings to rise by 2.8% year-over-year.

2. Trump takes aim at Toyota. President-elect Donald Trump tweeted his displeasure at carmaker Toyota on Thursday, threatening to impose taxes on the Japanese company if it produced its Corolla model in Mexico.

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3. Department store stocks got crushed after some flagship brick-and-mortar stores reported weak holiday sales. Around 11 a.m. ET, JC Penny was down by 6.3%, Nordstrom was down by 8.9%, Macy's was down by 14.4%, Kohl's was down by 18.9%, and Dillards was down by 10.2%.

4. Bitcoin had a wild day. The cryptocurrency fell by 20% earlier in the morning, and then somewhat rebounded from the lows. It was down by about 15% at $966.84 in the late afternoon.

5. A publishing powerhouse has reportedly approached Time Inc about a merger, and the stock popped. Meredith Corp. has contacted Time Inc. about a potential merger, according to Alex Sherman at Bloomberg. Times shares jumped by over 11% immediately after the news, but have settled up about 3% for the day.

6. Saudi Arabia is following through on its promise to cut oil production, according to the Wall Street Journal. WSJ reporter Georgi Kantchev tweeted on Thursday that the kingdom has cut oil output by at least 486,000 barrels per day to 10.058 million barrels per day, citing a "source."

ADDITIONALLY:

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