CLOSING BELL
More Like A Santa Crawl
Well, the market closed Tuesday down slightly, for the second day in a row. That must be what happens when the third day of the Santa Rally saw all time record prices. The rally is still slightly in the green if you zoom out, up about 0.26% at day’s end, equities moving at snails paces with about a fifth of the average volume for the S&P 500. It was surely the year of the Retail Tradertm, coined every couple of years when retail traders like you and me buy stocks in a big way.
WSJ reported around Thanksgiving that retail buying tracked by JPMorgan was higher than even 2021, the meme stock era. As ‘25 comes to a close, it feels like that era never ended.
But Tuesday, outside the regular AI datacenter chip trade news, there was not much to keep prices rising. Silver and metals rebounded, as did Bitcoin, while the major indexes fell slightly. Silver futures jumped 11%, the most in a day since 2009.
FOMC meeting minutes from December’s cut decision came to show a mix of reluctance, eagerness, and disheartening indifference toward cutting rates. Well, reluctance comes from the fact that tariffs and brave consumers are still helping inflation climb.
Markets are open for regular trade tomorrow, New Year’s Eve, but shut for the new year.
AI STOCKS
The AI Consolidation Wave
It truly would not be a day of trade in the year of our Lord 2025 without AI buyout or deal news, so here are your government-mandated updates, starting with an international purchase from your pals at Facebook.
Meta acquires AI agent startup Manus for $2B $META ( ▲ 1.1% ) is making a significant push into ‘autonomous AI agents’ by acquiring Singapore-based Manus for more than $2B. The company was on track for a $125M annual revenue run rate, and its CEO Xiao Hong will now report to Meta COO Javier Olivan while keeping the service available as a standalone product.
SoftBank completes historic $40B investment in OpenAI $SFTBY ( ▼ 0.75% )has finalized its massive $40B funding commitment to OpenAI after transferring a final tranche of roughly $22.5B this week. The deal, which had valued OpenAI at $260B, gives SoftBank a stake of more than 10% and will help fund the ‘Stargate Project,’ a nationwide network of AI data centers. The move cements Masayoshi Son’s strategy to pivot SoftBank entirely toward a portfolio of artificial superintelligence.
Nvidia in advanced talks to acquire AI21 Labs for $3B $NVDA ( ▼ 0.36% ) is reportedly in negotiations to buy an Israeli startup called AI21 Labs for a price tag between $2B and $3B, Bloomberg reported. The acquisition is primarily a talent play for AI21’s 200-person workforce, which holds deep expertise in reasoning-based large language models. The move aligns with Jensen Huang’s plan to double $NVDA’s presence in Israel, which he has called the company’s second home.
The Big Picture: Retail Ownership in the AI Era As 2025 draws to a close, retail investors are increasingly using these high-stakes AI deals as a ladder for financial agency. With the housing market frozen and wage growth cooling, the "positive feedback loop" of three straight years of double-digit stock gains has turned the market into a primary vehicle for wealth building. Retail sentiment on Stocks remains extremely bullish toward these infrastructure plays as the industry moves from training models to deployment (and hopefully, profit).
RETAIL NEWS
Trends to Cap Off the Year of the Retail Trader
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
China's 2026 Stimulus Strategy: Decoupling and Demand
China is entering 2026 with a two-pronged economic strategy: aggressive "technological decoupling" from the West and massive state-funded subsidies to jumpstart domestic consumption. The news and expected stimulus plan came from Beijing following a year-end policy meeting. In laymen’s terms, China is going to spend its stimulus toward keeping Trump from screwing with their exports,and ensuring their chip industry buys local.
The Semiconductor Shift
In one of its most aggressive moves toward self-reliance, Beijing is now requiring domestic chipmakers to use at least 50% locally made equipment for all new capacity expansions. The mandate aims to insulate China’s semiconductor industry from foreign reliance, though Nvidia and AMD were just recently lined up for sales there. $BIDU ( ▲ 4.39% ) and other state-backed firms are expected to benefit.
Along those lines, Samsung and SK Hynix secured 2026 China export licenses from Uncle Sam. The U.S. government granted Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix licenses to ship American chipmaking tools to their Chinese factories through 2026.
In the same announcement, Beijing officially extended its vehicle trade-in program, offering consumers up to 20,000 yuan, roughly $2,850, to scrap older cars for new energy vehicles. The news sent U.S.-listed shares of $NIO ( ▲ 3.0% ) and $XPEV ( ▲ 3.81% ) climbing nearly 6% intraday, as the subsidies provide critical "policy visibility" to counter a recent slump in retail passenger vehicle sales.
Meanwhile, at home, Tesla $TSLA ( ▼ 1.13% ) fell after it posted its delivery estimates for the new year, something it usually just shares privately with analysts in the investing industry. Earnest is great, but the numbers are not- showing a 15% drop in expected production for Q4, car making at the EV giant shrinking 8% for the year.
It’s the second year in a row of falling numbers. Musk said he was all in on AI, but there were not acconmpaniying figures for how many X subscriptions would make up for the decline.
But hey, Dan Ives said Tesla robot cars could add $1T more to the firm’s market cap.
POPS & DROPS
Top Stocks News Stories
U.S. markets remain open for regular trading hours on New Year’s Eve.
Applied Digital gained attention following reports of a potential cloud business spinoff.
Sidus Space rallied massively following a key defense contract win.
Tesla could gain $1 trillion in value through self-driving ambitions, Ives said.
Bitcoin faces its first-ever post-halving year ending in the red.
Disney settled child privacy violation allegations for $10 million.
Warner Bros. Discoveryreportedly plans to reject Paramount’s $108.4B bid.
STOCKS VIDEO
Finding the Alpha at CES: Send Her Questions!
Michelle Steel wants YOU to send your questions for her to cover the CES Vegas conference next week!