Markets
Luke Kawa

US stocks enjoy strong finish to quiet week


The S&P 500 enjoyed its best session of the week, rising 0.7% to eke out a tiny weekly gain. This was the smallest weekly change for the benchmark stock index in more than three years. The small advance pushes the streak of positive weeks to five, tying the longest so far this year.

However, the Nasdaq 100 Index did close at a record high thanks to strong performances from many of the so-called “Magnificent Seven” stocks. The tech-heavy gauge has risen at least 1% for the third straight week for the first time in 2024.

SPDR S&P 500 Trust, the ETF that tracks the S&P 500 market-cap index, outperformed Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF, which tracks its equal-weighted counterpart, in every session this week by 1.3 percentage points in total. That streak — and amount of outperformance — are the largest since January, and speak to the dominant role the biggest stocks have in driving overall returns.

Communication services, consumer discretionary, and utilities sector ETFs rose more than 1% on the day; real estate and healthcare lagged.

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Tasha Matsumoto
3h
Stocks dragged down by financials and hyperscalers

Despite soft inflation and an earnings beat from JPMorgan, policy proposals continued to sway stocks.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - JANUARY 10: DJ Moore #2 of the Chicago Bears runs with the ball during an NFL wild card playoff game against the Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field on January 10, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois.
markets
Max Knoblauch

Netflix reportedly considering making its $83 billion Warner Bros. offer all cash

Netflix is said to be considering making its $83 billion offer for the studio and streaming assets of Warner Bros. Discovery all cash, according to Bloomberg.

Shares of Netflix and WBD both climbed prior to market close on the report.

The news of Netflix’s potential change comes a day after Paramount Skydance announced it sued WBD for more information on its deal with Netflix.

Paramount has not improved its $30-per-share offer for Warner Bros., despite the latter’s board rejecting it twice.

Netflix Weighs Amending Warner Bros. Bid to Make It All Cash

Netflix Weighs Amending Warner Bros. Bid to Make It All Cash

The news of Netflix’s potential change comes a day after Paramount Skydance announced it sued WBD for more information on its deal with Netflix.

Paramount has not improved its $30-per-share offer for Warner Bros., despite the latter’s board rejecting it twice.

markets
J. Edward Moreno

Moderna rallies after projecting better-than-expected 2025 sales

Moderna rallied more than 15% on Tuesday after saying on Monday that its COVID-19 business did better than expected last year and it cut even more costs.

Moderna, which has been bleeding money since 2023, also said it expects to break even in 2028.

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Moderna says its expects $1.9 billion in 2025 sales amid better-than-expected vaccination rate

Moderna says its expects $1.9 billion in 2025 sales amid better-than-expected vaccination rate
markets
Max Knoblauch

Roblox surges as a new brainrot game climbs the engagement charts

A game that has players grab “brainrots” like “Aura Farma” and “Rainbow 67” and run away with Tsunamis is climbing the Roblox engagement charts and getting the attention of Wall Street analysts.

Morgan Stanley on Tuesday lowered its price target for Roblox from $170 to $155, but said that the platform’s risks are fully discounted and that it should continue to benefit from hit games. On Monday, BMO Capital directly cited the emergence of one such hit: “Escape Tsunami For Brainrots!”

That title, a top 5 experience on the gaming platform according to engagement tracking service RoMonitor, averaged more than 40 million visits from Saturday to Monday. Less than a month old, the game has landed just in time, emerging after analysts last month warned that 2025 viral hits like “Grow a Garden” and “Steal a Brainrot” (yes, it’s different) are past their peaks.

markets
Luke Kawa

Nvidia stock shrugs off report that Chinese customers will only be able to buy H200 AI chips “under special circumstances”

The Information is reporting that Chinese customers won’t be able to get their hands on as many Nvidia H200 AI chips as they want.

Per the outlet, the “Chinese government this week told some tech companies it would only approve their purchases of Nvidia’s H200 AI chips under special circumstances, such as for university research and development labs,” citing two people with direct knowledge of the situation.

On December 8, US President Donald Trump said Nvidia would be allowed to sell these chips, the most advanced in its Hopper generation, to China. This was shortly followed by a report from the Financial Times that Chinese regulators were “discussing ways to permit limited access to the H200,” as the world’s second-largest economy has been keen on boosting its domestic chip industry. Last week, Bloomberg reported that “Chinese officials are preparing to allow local companies to buy the component from Nvidia for select commercial use,” with imports beginning “as soon as this quarter.”

Call it information fatigue, because the market doesn’t seem to care about this latest report, with shares making fresh highs for the day not even 10 minutes after this news hit the wires. Or perhaps when it comes to AI development, it’s not hard to come up with “special circumstances” to justify access to powerful chips.

The report adds that Chinese officials have told companies to only buy these chips if “necessary” — without really defining what “necessary” means.

It’s not the first time traders shrugged off reporting from The Information on Nvidia. Shares finished up 1% on January 7, the day the outlet reported that Beijing was suspending purchases of the H200 pending a decision on what the import restrictions would be.

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