IEA Cuts 2015 Forecast for Oil Demand; Oil lower; Baidu stake in Uber

Oil is front and center this month. The international energy agency cut its 2015 forecast for global oil demand by 230,000 barrels per day, citing lower expectations from oil-exporting countries. Nymex crude checks in at 59 dollars a barrel. Merck facing some headwinds. A human trial of an experimental ebola vaccine recently licensed by the drug giant has been suspended until january. According to a geneva hospital helping to conduct the trial indicated this after four healthy volunteers receiving it experienced mild joint pain. Back in november, merck agreed to pay newlink genetics corporation $30 million for the rights to the vaccine, plus an additional $20 million if the vaccine hits certain development targets. Finally some good news for Uber this week. Chinese internet search engine baidu.com is buying a minority stake in uber as it expands in the country. The investment may be worth as much as $600 million ac to china national radio. Uber has been the target of bad press given the incident in india over the weekend. Uber was recently valued at 40 billion as the company reportedly readies to go public