The Weekend Rip
Happy Weekend!
The market spent the first week of December in a bizarre state where bad macro news became good stock news. Trades hope for rate cuts in the coming next week pushed stocks higher despite massive layoffs, and delayed Sept. inflation that was flat at 2.8%. In tech drama, Meta's Metaverse died, OpenAI went "Code Red" to fight its rivals, and Netflix won a $72B bid for Warner Bros. in a deal that might be held hostage by a rival bidder's rich dad.
Let's recap and prep you for the week ahead.
Monday : The December slump arrived right after the Thanksgiving feast, dragging the market down. Adding to the hangover, Nvidia made another questionable "circular" investment in a partner company, and OpenAI proved that the best way to spend money is to buy a stake in your own venture capitalist's firm.
Tuesday : The market bounced back, shrugging off December blues to flirt with a Santa Rally, while both Apple and metals minted fresh records. In the AI arms race, OpenAI reportedly went "Code Red" after competitors launched superior models. Rumor has it Intel and Amazon jumped in and started making their own chips to keep up with the increasingly expensive Nvidia arms race.
Wednesday : The market cheerfully soared to a green close despite ADP reporting the worst private payroll job cuts in three years, proving once again that bad news for the labor market is apparently great news for Fed rate cut. Meanwhile, the AI software sector had a massive after-hours party, with Salesforce and UiPath beating big, prompting one analyst to declare that the AI arms race party is still raging at 10:30 PM and won't stop until 4 AM.
Thursday : The market struggled to climb higher, buoyed by the great news that layoffs are at a 2020 high, adding fuel to the "bad jobs = rate cuts" fire. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg officially admitted the Metaverse is a failure, presumably while throwing his VR headset into the bin, as media giants engaged in a massive, costly battle to buy Warner Bros.'s IP library of superheroes and Scooby-Doo.
Friday : The market ended the week on a high note, fueled by the happy news that September's inflation was only slightly up, pretty much guaranteeing the Fed will cut rates next week. The biggest drama involved Netflix winning the bid for Warner Bros.'s studio and streaming assets for a whopping $72B, though the deal is now in jeopardy because a rival bidder's dad is Larry Ellison, who happens to be a long-time Trump supporter.
This week's Stocks Top 25 showed outperformance vs. the indexes.
Here are the closing prices:
THE BRIEF
Need a concise summary of what's going on this week? Look no further. Here’s a rundown of this week’s earnings and economic data.
Earnings This Week
Above is a quick summary. Check out the full Stocks earnings calendar for the other names reporting this week.
Economic Calendar
It’s a busy week of economic data, with investors focused on the FOMC decision on Wednesday.
In addition to the above, check out this week's complete list of economic releases.