Markets
Luke Kawa

Top five stocks drive US indexes higher; FedEx has best day ever


The S&P 500 inched into positive territory in the last 10 minutes of trading, despite spending most of the day modestly in the red, to end with a 0.2% gain. The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.3%.

The weird, recent pattern of stocks going up on poor breadth (and down on positive breadth) continued: Just 175 constituents in the S&P 500 rose, and the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF finished the day down 0.4%.

The top five weights in the S&P 500 did the lion’s work, with Amazon up 3.9% and Apple up 2%; Microsoft, Nvidia, and Meta also rallied. FedEx had its best day ever, up 15.5% after releasing earnings after the close on Tuesday that surprised to the upside as well as announcing a large stock buyback plan. Grindr also rose 15.3% after revealing financial targets that would establish its place as a standout in the otherwise challenged dating app space.

Consumer discretionary was far and away the best-performing US sector ETF, up 1.4%, while energy and financials lagged.

In currencies, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.4%, hitting its highest level since early November, while the Japanese yen weakened past the 160 threshold versus the US dollar. 

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markets
Luke Kawa

Opendoor rises after CEO Kaz Nejatian touts an explosion in its home-buying footprint

Opendoor Technologies gained in early trading after CEO Kaz Nejatian touted an explosion in the company’s home-buying footprint.

In a message on X, the former Shopify COO posted two maps: one of which depicts a fairly limited area in which the online real estate company would buy or sell homes, and the second of which suggests that has now expanded to include the entire lower 48:

In a follow-up tweet, Nejatian attributed the gains to AI, writing, “First pic took 10 *years* of work without AI. Second pic took 10 *weeks* of work with AI.”

On his first earnings call as CEO, Nejatian said the company had adopted a “default to AI approach.”

One of his first pledges was to launch Opendoor everywhere in the lower 48.

markets
Max Knoblauch

Hertz surges on bullish options activity

As millions begrudgingly make their way to the rental car counter amid the winter holidays, investors are pouring into calls and sending Hertz stock soaring.

As of 10:51 a.m. eastern, Hertz had seen 17,861 calls traded. That’s already significantly ahead of the 20-day average volume of 12,956. Hertz shares are up more than 12%.

If Hertz’s price action holds, the move will mark its ninth-best trading day of 2025.

markets
Luke Kawa

POET Technologies jumps on elevated call activity

Optical communications company POET Technologies is up double digits in early trading on Monday as this potential supporting player in the AI boom gets a bid from the options market.

Just an hour after the opening bell sounded, call volumes are already running well above their five-session average for a full day.

The stock became a retail favorite in early Q4 right before many speculative trades began to retreat, with record call volumes of nearly 600,000 on October 7. The last big bump in options activity came on December 3, the session after Marvell’s acquisition of Celestial AI, a customer of POET, offered some validation for its technology as a data center solution.

markets
Max Knoblauch

Nintendo dips after GameStop says the “Mario Kart World” bundle will stop being produced

Nintendo’s popular bundle that packaged the Switch 2 with “Mario Kart World” is seemingly going out of production, per a post on X from GameStop.

Shares of the console maker fell more than 3% after markets opened on Monday, implying some worry from investors that consumers may not be so willing to pay the game’s elevated $80 price tag (it’s valued at $50 in the bundle). About 9.6 million copies of the game have sold since the Switch 2 released in June, a figure that includes the bundled version.

The Switch 2 itself is still looking solid, sales-wise. It was pacing 68% ahead of the original Switch in October, though November saw a sharp market-wide spending drop-off on consoles according to data from Circana. Sony’s PS5 outsold the Switch 2 in both units and dollars last month.

markets
Luke Kawa

Quantum computing stocks soar on bullish options activity

Quantum computing stocks D-Wave Quantum, IonQ, Rigetti Computing, and Quantum Computing are surging on Monday morning thanks to one-way traffic in the options market.

Put/call ratios for all of these companies are well below their 20-day averages about 20 minutes into the session:

D-Wave, which is leading the rally, did have some news to speak of: an announcement that Murray Thom, vice president of quantum technology evangelism, would be presenting at CES on January 7. That press release, published at 7 a.m. ET, didn’t really move the needle much for the shares, with the company and its peers only taking off once the regular trading day began and with it, the options frenzy.

While the good times may be back for these stocks, there’s still a long ways to go to repair the damage suffered since October, when a broad group of speculative stocks peaked.

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