US equity markets staged an afternoon rebound to close higher, with the rally gathering momentum in the closing minutes of trading to see stocks clinch their biggest intra-session comeback in three months - Dow up +68.50-points or +0.24%, recovering from an earlier -216-point or -0.9% slide. Boeing Co is considering plans to raise more debt to bolster finances strained by the grounding of its 737 MAX jets, according to The Wall Street Journal. The broader S&P500 rose +0.35%. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc – which is slated to report their third quarter result on Wednesday night AEST – rose +2.99% after The Wall Street Journal reported that the home-goods retailer has signed a deal to sell roughly half its real estate to a private-equity firm and lease back the space in a transaction that will generate more than US$250M in proceeds. Merck & Co fell -0.92% in extended trading after the pharmaceutical company said that its lung cancer drug Keytruda did not meet one its end points in a clinical study. The technology-centric NASDAQ +0.56%. Netflix Inc and Google-parent Alphabet Inc advanced 3.1% and 2.7% respectively, while Facebook Inc and Apple Inc both rose more than >1%. Looking ahead, Chinese officials are set to arrive in Washington on 13 January for a four-day meeting with US counterparts to sign a preliminary trade pact to end the protracted trade conflict.
