Your Evening Briefing

December 18, 2025

Markets cheer surprise gift of cooler CPI amid renewed AI optimism to finish higher

After a string of dismal trading days, US stocks soared on a sack full of good news that reversed this week’s downward trend and made visions of a Santa Claus Rally dance in trader’s heads.

Micron’s after-the-bell earnings report Wednesday absolutely smashed all expectations, lifting a trove of tech stocks with it as the AI trade lit back up. OpenAI reportedly getting its hands on more money also boosted AI optimism. All of the Magnificent 7 rose as well as Bloom Energy, Cipher Mining, POET Technologies, CoreWeave, IREN, and Nebius.

Investors also cheered this morning’s inflation data, which came in well below economists’ expectations, with annual core CPI inflation falling to lowest level since March 2021, offering fresh justification for the interest rate cuts already delivered by the Federal Reserve and prompting traders to bet on the prospect of more to come.

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all celebrated cheery gains.

Stocks that moved higher:

Trump Media surged after announcing it’s merging with fusion energy company TAE Technologies.
Rivian climbed after it rolled out a “universal hands-free” update and scored an upgrade from Baird.
Utilities with a footprint in the country’s largest power grid, such as Talen Energy, Constellation Energy, and Vistra, spiked after prices set in a key auction hit a record high.

Stocks that moved lower:

President Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to reschedule marijuana as a less dangerous drug, which sank shares of Canadian cannabis companies such as Tilray, Canopy Growth, Cronos Group, and SNDL Inc. The AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis ETF, the benchmark ETF for publicly-traded US cannabis companies, plunged, as investors treated it as a “sell the news” event.
Used car retailer CarMax sunk following the company’s third-quarter earnings report which showed its used car sales had declined.
Instacart slumped following a report that the FTC is probing its AI pricing tool.
Coinbase rose after announcing it was entering into prediction markets and stock trading, but lost those gains by the close.

US electric vehicle sales are expected to slide nearly 40% in Q4

In a strange turn of events, the decline might actually be good news for Tesla, the biggest EV maker in the US. Read more.

Inside Trump Media’s head-scratching $6 billion merger to become a nuclear fusion company

In what is almost certainly the oddest merger of the year, President Donald Trump’s social media company struck a $6 billion deal to unite with the fusion energy company TAE Technologies in a bid to start building the “world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant” next year.

Read more.

OpenAI’s valuation grows. Just yesterday, we were reading about how Amazon was in talks to invest as much as $10 billion in OpenAI, with an eye-popping valuation of more than $500 billion. But according to the Information, those numbers are already old. Read more.

Netflix and Disney+ probably only added ad-tier subscribers this year, says Morgan Stanley
As streaming prices climb, ad-free subscribers are becoming a rarity.
The stock market loves your rising electricity bill
“Data centers’ demand for electricity continues to far outstrip new supply,” PJM’s future COO said.

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