Markets
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Luke Kawa

Trump Media stock stumbles after inauguration, meme-coin launch

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group are sinking 7% in the premarket.

We’re well past the point of thinking this is some kind of reevaluation of the future value of the cash flows the owner of Truth Social will generate over time. It’s a Trump speculative barometer — and not the only game in town on that front.

Perhaps there was only so much speculative, Trump-adjacent oxygen out there to go round, and the $TRUMP coin sucked some of that away from the stock.

Shares of the social-media company have also tended to ramp and peak before major events — effectively “buy the rumor, and sell before someone else has a chance to sell the news.”

When did DJT put in an intermediate top? Five trading days before the election. This more recent jump and local peak in the shares? Also five trading days before the inauguration.

But in any event, the paper gains for Trump and his family on these assets do represent a source of trapped wealth.

Trump’s association — primarily through ownership stakes — is part of what attracts and maintains value in these assets. The president, along with closely linked organizations and companies, owns more than half of DJT and 80% of the recently launched meme coin $TRUMP. It’s highly likely that sellers in such a position would face immense difficulties exiting without eliciting a substantially negative price response. And signs of an exodus would also undermine the quasi-fundamental (speaking generously) reason for being involved in the first place!

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Matt Phillips

‘Golden age of profit margins’ seen in 2026

Wall Street tends to be a pretty optimistic place. But on one measure, market watchers are the most optimistic on record.

FactSet data shows the consensus estimate for S&P 500 net profit margins in calendar year 2026 calls for the gauge to climb to 13.9% in 2026.

But if borne out by events next year “it will mark the highest (annual) net profit margin reported by the index since FactSet began tracking this metric in 2008,” wrote John Butters, senior earnings analyst at the financial data company.

A recent story from Barron’s also commented on the expectations for especially fat profit margins embedded into forecasts for next year.

“We are in the golden age of margins,” RBC’s Capital Markets’ head of US equity strategy, Lori Calvasina, told the magazine.

That’s good news for investors looking forward to next year. But the follow up question, of course, is where the growth in profitability is expected to come from. The answer, as you might have guessed, is tech. Though the precise mechanisms by which those profits land in the coffers of the giant tech firms remains something of a mystery. Barron’s doesn’t get into the details, saying “call it benefits from AI, pricing power, or whatever.”

That doesn’t exactly sound like money in the bank. But even die-hard haters of AI have to acknowledge that betting against the ability of giant tech companies to generate massive profit growth has been a bad trade for the last couple decades.

The Stock Market Needs to Focus on Lucky 13

The Stock Market Needs to Focus on Lucky 13

But if borne out by events next year “it will mark the highest (annual) net profit margin reported by the index since FactSet began tracking this metric in 2008,” wrote John Butters, senior earnings analyst at the financial data company.

A recent story from Barron’s also commented on the expectations for especially fat profit margins embedded into forecasts for next year.

“We are in the golden age of margins,” RBC’s Capital Markets’ head of US equity strategy, Lori Calvasina, told the magazine.

That’s good news for investors looking forward to next year. But the follow up question, of course, is where the growth in profitability is expected to come from. The answer, as you might have guessed, is tech. Though the precise mechanisms by which those profits land in the coffers of the giant tech firms remains something of a mystery. Barron’s doesn’t get into the details, saying “call it benefits from AI, pricing power, or whatever.”

That doesn’t exactly sound like money in the bank. But even die-hard haters of AI have to acknowledge that betting against the ability of giant tech companies to generate massive profit growth has been a bad trade for the last couple decades.

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%.

Seemingly juicing the rally was a post on X that read “car rental companies could end up being the picks and shovels of autonomy” that was reposted by billionaire Bill Ackman, whose hedge fund is one of Hertz’s largest shareholders.

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.

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