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Horse Ranch In Zhangye
(Zhang Xiaotian/Getty Images)

US stocks in holding pattern ahead of Wednesday’s Fed decision

Major indexes closed down 0.1%.

Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa

US stocks did little of note on Tuesday, with traders seemingly content to sit on their hands ahead of the Federal Reserve decision tomorrow afternoon.

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all declined 0.1% on the session.

Energy was the best-performing S&P 500 sector ETF, while utilities were at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Steel Dynamics was one of the bright spots, with shares up 6.2% after the company guided for better-than-expected Q3 earnings. Warner Bros. Discovery led declines, falling 6.3% after TD Cowen downgraded the stock from “buy” to “hold,” citing concerns over its recent takeover uncertainty. Elsewhere…

Webtoon Entertainment shares soared 39% after Disney said it’s buying a 2% stake and partnering with the popular digital comics platform.

Tesla rose 2.8% amid new data showing it continues to dominate in US EV sales and as CEO Elon Musk responded to a post on X with, “Daddy is very much home,” before detailing his packed Tesla schedule and involvement with the company.

Rivian shares jumped 5.2% after the EV maker broke ground on its delayed $5 billion Georgia plant, which it says will be able to produce 200,000 vehicles per year by 2028.

Nio climbed 8.2% following an upgrade from UBS to “buy” from “neutral.” The move propelled the stock to its highest level since last October.

Plug Power gained 7.3% after a wave of bullish options activity.

Moderna ticked higher by 4% after the biotech giant announced encouraging phase 4 clinical trial results for its next COVID-19 vaccine.

GameStop popped 3.1%, notching its longest winning streak since 2022, on the heels of the company’s stellar Q2 earnings report last week.

Oracle was up 1.5% after The Wall Street Journal reported that the cloud giant is part of an upcoming deal for a US spin-off of TikTok.

Dave & Buster’s tumbled nearly 17% after the arcade and restaurant chain’s disappointing Q2 earnings report, released after the bell on Monday.

Rocket Lab shares dropped 12.6% after the company announced an at-the-market share offering of up to $750 million in securities, hammering its stock price in early trading.

Hims & Hers fell 5.7% after the FDA posted a warning letter it sent the company over the marketing for its compounded weight-loss drugs.

Delta Air Lines shares dipped 1% after the Trump administration ordered the airline to dissolve its roughly 9-year-old joint venture with Aeromexico by January 1, 2026.

Ralph Lauren shares fell as much as 2% before closing roughly flat after the luxury retailer delivered a solid revenue outlook but warned that tariffs and inflation could squeeze margins.

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Luke Kawa

Oracle soars after TikTok signs agreement to sell its US operations to consortium that includes the cloud computing giant

Oracle soared in after-hours trading on Thursday on news that TikTok owner ByteDance signed contracts with the three major investors who are leading a joint venture to take over the short-form video app’s US operations, per a widely-cited memo from TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to employees.

The trio of parties in that consortium are the cloud computing company, private equity firm Silver Lake, and MGX, a tech investment company backed by Abu Dhabi.

Per reports, the structure of the deal is roughly aligned with what was outlined in September, which valued TikTok’s US operations at about $14 billion. Relative to some less-popular peers, that seems like a pretty low price tag, so picking up doomscrolling on a discount (or if you prefer, short-term video browsing on a budget) looks to be a worthy catalyst for the bump in the beaten-down hyperscaler’s shares. And that’s even before mentioning the potential for Oracle’s cloud business to enhance its preexisting relationship with TikTok.

Toby Bochan
Market Wrap
8h
Markets cheer surprise gift of cooler CPI amid renewed AI optimism to finish higher

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 surged on Thursday — perhaps we’ll have a Santa rally after all!

Two Men Holding Gifts
CAMARILLO, CA FEBRUARY 09: A cannabis farm worker de-leafs cann

Trump signs executive order expediting reclassification of marijuana as a less dangerous drug

Rescheduling would lift regulatory pressures that have been weighing on US cannabis operators’ margins. Shares of weed companies, many of which don’t sell cannabis in the US, tumbled an hour before the executive order was signed.

J. Edward Moreno10h
markets
Max Knoblauch

Rivian climbs as it rolls out a “universal hands-free” update and scores an upgrade from Baird

Shares of EV maker Rivian are on pace for their 10th best day of 2025 on Thursday, following an upgrade from Baird to “buy” from “hold” and the rollout of its new hands-free driving update.

Baird raised its price target on Rivian nearly 79% to $25, writing that “2026 is the year of R2.”

Meanwhile, Rivian says its new hands-free feature will allow drivers to take their hands off the wheel across 3.5 million miles of US and Canadian roads.

Despite referring to it as “universal hands-free” driving, the EV maker says the feature will not stop or slow for traffic lights or stop signs, follow navigation systems, or make turns, and will function only on roads with visible lane lines.

Rivian revealed the update at its AI Day last week, when it also hinted at a robotaxi plan.

Rivian rolls out new 'Universal Hands-Free' driving feature | TechCrunch

Rivian rolls out new 'Universal Hands-Free' driving feature | TechCrunch

Meanwhile, Rivian says its new hands-free feature will allow drivers to take their hands off the wheel across 3.5 million miles of US and Canadian roads.

Despite referring to it as “universal hands-free” driving, the EV maker says the feature will not stop or slow for traffic lights or stop signs, follow navigation systems, or make turns, and will function only on roads with visible lane lines.

Rivian revealed the update at its AI Day last week, when it also hinted at a robotaxi plan.

markets
Matt Phillips

The stock market loves your rising electricity bill

Utilities with a footprint in the massive PJM Interconnection, the country’s largest power grid, were up Thursday after prices set in a key auction hit a record high of $333.44 per megawatt-day.

Such power providers, including Talen Energy, Constellation Energy, and Vistra, saw tidy gains shortly before midday.

“This auction leaves no doubt that data centers’ demand for electricity continues to far outstrip new supply, and the solution will require concerted action involving PJM, its stakeholders, state and federal partners, and the data center industry itself,” Stu Bresler, set to become PJM’s chief operating officer next month, told Reuters.

As I’ve previously mused, political pushback from high power prices, partially created by the AI boom, could become a constraint on development of such sites. Democrats in the US Senate are now calling for hearings on the issue.

It’s fertile political soil. This morning’s US CPI report for November showed electricity prices up nearly 7% year over year, the highest since the tail end of the postpandemic inflation in April 2023.

Costs on Key US Grid Hit New Record, Testing Affordability

Costs on Key US Grid Hit New Record, Testing Affordability

“This auction leaves no doubt that data centers’ demand for electricity continues to far outstrip new supply, and the solution will require concerted action involving PJM, its stakeholders, state and federal partners, and the data center industry itself,” Stu Bresler, set to become PJM’s chief operating officer next month, told Reuters.

As I’ve previously mused, political pushback from high power prices, partially created by the AI boom, could become a constraint on development of such sites. Democrats in the US Senate are now calling for hearings on the issue.

It’s fertile political soil. This morning’s US CPI report for November showed electricity prices up nearly 7% year over year, the highest since the tail end of the postpandemic inflation in April 2023.

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