Hey Snackers,
What’s furry, funny, and a surprise hit in China? If you guessed “Zootopia 2,” give yourself a prize. While the sequel to the popular Disney hit did really well in the US, its fluffy, buddy cop appeal was a global smash, netting over half a billion dollars globally to make it the highest-grossing debut in 2025 as well as a rare win for a US-made movie in China.
The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all traded lower on Monday as investors eschewed riskier assets. Hopes for a December rate cut remained high, with Bank of America analysts joining the bandwagon of hopefuls anticipating a rate cut at the conclusion of the Fed’s two-day meeting next Wednesday.
Tech stock kingmaker Dan Ives shuffles his list of the top AI stocks
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives is still very bullish on the outlook for AI stocks as we creep closer to the start of another new year.
“In a nutshell, this AI Revolution is just beginning today and we believe tech stocks and the AI winners should be bought given our view this is Year 3 of what will be a 10-year cycle of this AI Revolution buildout,” he wrote.
But he’s switching up his roster of potential stock market beneficiaries from the ongoing boom.
Ives added neocloud CoreWeave, bitcoin miner turned data center company IREN, and Shopify to his list of top 30 AI winners (which are held in the Dan Ives Wedbush AI Revolution ETF).
The thinking? For CoreWeave, he expects demand for AI compute will exceed supply in the near term. For Shopify, he’s optimistic on how aggressively the company is integrating AI into its business. And for IREN, he’s a fan of its “differentiated approach to providing significant power supply necessary to fuel the AI Revolution,” given its aims to vertically integrate power infrastructure into its data center business.
To make room for the trio, he axed SoundHound AI (“facing a difficult competitive landscape”), ServiceNow (“choppy path to monetize on its increased usage”), and Salesforce (AI monetization has been slower than anticipated) from the list.
Let’s read between the lines here, because there’s something super interesting going on.
The Takeaway
The analyst is leaning a little more into the upstream parts of the AI supply chain, rebalancing his ETF toward the facilitators rather than the names that are closer to end consumers. He's swapping out three downstream companies for one downstream and two upstream companies. One would think that by now, the beneficiaries of the AI boom ought to be the businesses applying the tech, you know, like ServiceNow and SoundHound. Instead, Ives is rallying behind the picks and shovels of the gold rush.
Jensen Huang is talking about robots. Masayoshi Son is talking about AI being 10,000x to 100,000x smarter than a human. Dan Ives is like, yeah, buy the fundamental nuts and bolts. Worth a thought!
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The Best Thing We Read Today
JPMorgan Asset Management’s top strategist on the outlook for 2026
Sherwood News’ Matt Phillips nabbed a call with David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, and he pointed us to the reason “why we are very reluctant to call for recession, even though we can see some weakness in economic data right now,” as well as his predictions on rate cuts and why it may be time to add more foreign market exposure to portfolios.
Snacks Shots
🏈 College Football: We’re officially in Championship Week for college football. For the SEC Championship this Saturday, the market* is giving favorite Georgia 56% odds over Alabama; for the Big Ten Championship, Ohio State is the favorite over Indiana with a 66% chance of victory; and the Big 12 sees Texas Tech as huge 81% favorites over BYU.
📊 Fed: Bank of America joined the rest of the market in calling a quarter-point cut at the Fed meeting next week. Prediction markets are putting the odds at 89%, and the Fed funds futures market is pricing in a nearly 88% probability of such a snip.
*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.
What Else We're Snackin'
Tesla sold more cars in Norway this year than any automaker ever, but that’s probably not going to change Michael Burry’s mind about the company
Eli Lilly slashed Zepbound prices on its direct-to-consumer platform
Amazon AWS is due to roll out its own updated AI models this week
Snack Fact Of The Day
Americans spent a record $11.8 billion online on Black Friday alone, up 9% from last year.
Today's Earnings
Earnings expected from: Marvell Technology, CrowdStrike, American Eagle Outfitters, Signet Jewelers, GitLab, Okta, and Box
1 You receive a tax deduction in the year you contribute, not when the funds are granted to nonprofits.
2 The account invests in funds that have additional fees.
3 Referring to top five donor-advised fund providers by AUM. See this article for more information
4 See this article for more information.
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5 Intended for US Investors. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal and fluctuation of value. Consult your tax advisor as tax deductions are dependent upon an individual’s tax situation.