Wall Street’s mood brightens on Nintendo as Switch 2 momentum builds

US-traded ADRs of Nintendo are up more than 4% Friday morning as markets turn more optimistic on the gaming giant.

Following the worst November in 30 years for American gaming console unit sales, Circana on Thursday reported that Nintendo’s Switch 2 saw a rebound in December. According to analyst Mat Piscatella, the popular handheld console’s unit sales are pacing 35% ahead of Sony’s PlayStation 4 seven months after release.

Analysts at Jefferies and Wolfe Research highlighted the strength of the console in recent notes, with Wolfe upgrading the stock from “underperform” to “peer perform.” Wolfe said it largely maintains its unit sales estimate of 20.5 million Switch 2s in the fiscal year ending in March.

On Friday, Japan’s central bank raised its 2026 GDP growth forecast from 0.7% to 1%, also potentially boosting the country’s major companies like Nintendo.

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Matt Phillips2h

Oil settles Friday at highest level since start of war

US oil prices moved higher in afternoon trading Friday, sapping strength from the stock market as they posted their highest close since the start of the Iran war.

After another day where the Strait of Hormuz was essentially closed to global tanker traffic, US futures for West Texas Intermediate settled up 3.1% at $98.71 a barrel for an 8.6% weekly gain, per Dow Jones data.

American officials have discussed using the US Navy to escort tankers through the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman, but have said plans for such convoys are not ready yet. However, it is unclear if military convoys would bring an end to the war-related dislocations in the oil market.

“It could help,” Tom Liles, senior vice president of upstream research at energy consulting firm Rystad, told Sherwood News in a recent interview. “It could also go in a lot of different directions if a Navy ship is hit or if a tanker is hit.”

Oil Posts Weekly Gains As Middle East Conflict Drags On

Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks post third straight week of losses as Brent crude surges above $100

Stocks wiped out early gains to close lower amid the ongoing war in Iran.

Matt Phillips6h

Memory stocks rebound off last weeks losses

Memory stocks Micron, Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings rose again Friday, putting these crucial providers of chips for AI inference work on track for big weekly gains after last week’s steep losses following the outbreak of war with Iran.

There’s no obvious trigger for the move higher for these shares this week, other than a bit of a recovery in the AI trade more broadly — AI beneficiaries like IT cable and connections maker Amphenol and custom chip and networking company Marvell Technology clawed back some gains this week — perhaps due Oracle’s earnings earlier, and some mean reversion to boot.

Micron is due to report earnings after the close of trading on Wednesday, with the company catching a couple price target hikes this week, including one from Wedbush on Friday.

Sandisk is something of a different story, as its enormous gains over the last 12 months — roughly 1,200% — have made it a momentum play beloved by the retail crowd.

It was up about 20% this week at around 11 a.m. ET. And its nearly 170% gain this year keeps the stock on top of the S&P 500, in terms of price performance.

Luke Kawa

The S&P 500’s internals are awful... while it’s still less than 5% from its record closing high

The breadth of negative momentum within the index’s constituents is even worse than at the tariff-induced market bottom in April 2025.

Luke Kawa

These two charts show how the Iran war is causing markets to price in a longer oil supply crunch

The rise of third-month Brent futures relative to front-month this week is unprecedented since at least 1989.

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