Headlines

• Stock market today: S&P 500 closes higher but Microsoft stumble keeps lid on gains

• OpenAI eyes massive investment round valuing it at $340 billion

Softbank to lead the round investing around $20b

• Indexes end higher as investors weigh key corporate earnings

Tesla to roll out cheaper models in 25H1, autonomous ride-hailing in June.

• 67 believed dead after American Airlines plane collides with Army helicopter

• Factbox-Deadly US airline crashes since 2001

• Italy’s regulator blocks Chinese AI app DeepSeek on data protection

• Trump to announce 25% tariffs on Canada, Mexico

• Markets (and the world) on edge as Trump’s tariff deadline approaches

Trump reiterated his intent speaking to reporters at the White House. The self-imposed deadline is Feb 1. “We may or may not. We’re going to make that determination probably tonight.”

• US military deportation flight likely cost more than first class

The one way ticket to Guatemala on a C-17 military transport aircraft is $4,675 per immigrant.

• Amazon reportedly boosts ad-spending on X in major U-turn: WSJ

• Apple to report Q1 earnings a week after stock hit with multiple downgrades

• Visa profit jumps on strong holiday spending

• Meta, Microsoft downplay DeepSeek threat

Claims Chinese AI will benefit their companies as well.

• UPS scales back on Amazon deliveries: It ‘just doesn’t make sense for us’

UPS will cut back on Amazon deliveries by 50% by 2026.

• Fed’s wait-and-see approach likely won’t be shaken by new GDP and inflation numbers

Headlines

• Powell Says Fed Doesn’t Need to Be in a Hurry to Lower Rates

Fed keeps rate. “The committee is very much in the mode of waiting to see what policies are enacted. Trump replied on Truth Social “Because Jay Powell and the Fed failed to stop the problem they created with Inflation, I will do it by unleashing American Energy production, slashing Regulation, rebalancing International Trade, and reigniting American Manufacturing”

• Tesla (TSLA) Q4 Earnings 2025: Live Results, Elon Musk Comments – Bloomberg

• Tesla fourth-quarter results miss estimates as automotive revenue drops 8%

Automotive revenue drops 8%. Unsupervised FSD to come June. Discussions to license FSD. Optimus to work at factories. Profit misses estimates. Hardware 3 customers will need an upgrade for FSD to work. Digital assets value surges to $1.1b from $184m

• Trump Media surges after expansion into financial services including crypto and ETFs

The finance division Truth.Fi will venture into ETFs and crypto

• Meta shares pop after company beats on revenue

24Q4 sales jumps 21%, while net income grew 49%. Meta AI chatbot surpasses 700m monthly active users. Zuckerberg estimates 1b this year. Virtual reality segment sees a record -$4.97b in losses.

• Meta to Pay $25 Million to End Trump Lawsuit Over Jan. 6 Ban

$22m will go to the presidential library. $3m will go to lawyers.

• Meta CEO Zuckerberg: too early to predict DeepSeek impact on infrastructure

Shift to inference does not mean a reduction in overall computing, Zuckerberg said.

• Microsoft shares slip on light quarterly Azure growth

Microsoft beat estimates but reported a softer forecast. Azure revenue grew 31% YoY, down from 33%.

• DeepSeek’s global success received by Chinese with pride and glee

• Sensitive DeepSeek data exposed to web, Israeli cyber firm says

Million line of data including digital keys and user prompts were left unsecured. DeepSeek quickly handled the situation.

Headline Digest

• ASML Orders Beat Estimates as Concern Over DeepSeek’s AI Grows

$7.4b order bookings in 24Q4 compared to estimate of $3.5b

• Nvidia’s $589 Billion DeepSeek Rout Is Largest in Market History

On Monday Nvidia praised DeepSeek’s performance, while adding that inference still requires significant amounts of Nvidia GPUs

• Microsoft Probing If DeepSeek-Linked Group Improperly Obtained OpenAI Data

David Sacks, Trump’s AI and Crypto Czar, said there is substantial evidence of distillation whereby an AI model uses the outputs of another model to inherit similar capabilities.

• Trump’s Tariffs Hit US Growth Before, and Threaten to Again

Analysis of tariffs levied in the first term of Trump, showed reduction in real income and less US factory jobs.

• India Investors Eye Budget Relief After $600 Billion Stock Rout

India investors anticipate federal spending to support infrastructure, manufacturing, rural development and defense. Since the high-point on September 26th, India equity indices fell 12% in the following four months.

• Bets on Bigger Treasuries Rally Are Booming Before Fed Decision

Bond traders anticipate signals for a March rate-cut in tomorrow’s comment.

• Apple and SpaceX Link Up to Support Starlink Satellite Network on iPhones

This software update will provide an alternative to Apple’s in-house satellite-comm service. T-Mobile previously only mentioned Samsung smartphones to be connected to Musk’s satellites.

• Tesla investors want Elon Musk to answer questions about ‘salute,’ role in Trump White House

Tesla to report 24Q4 earnings on Wednesday. 100+ inquires on Musk’s involvement in politics filled Tesla’s questionnaire forum, including time allocation.

• Trump administration offering buyouts to nearly all federal workers

Those who don’t like the full return-to-office, can take the “deferred resignation” which includes a payout equal to 8 months pay. Emailing “Resign” is all it would take to accept the buyout.

B↑2📆 Headline Digest

• Bank of Japan Is Set to Raise Interest Rates, Trump Permitting

• Trump Considers Extension as TikTok Shutdown Deadline Approaches

Trump “most likely” to give 90-days for a deal. Perplexity submits bid.

• Plastic Surgery Boom Lures South Korea’s Overworked Doctors

Medical tourists reached 600k in 2023.

• Solana surges 12% on launch of Trump-themed meme coin, ether falls

• Trump launches his own $TRUMP meme coin, price soars overnight

• Ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will go into effect Sunday morning, officials say

Netanyahu says the country is treating the ceasefire as temporary and that he has Trump’s support.

• Vanguard to pay more than $100 million to SEC over violations involving target date retirement funds

TDFs follow a glide path that determines the allocation between stocks and bonds over time. They are usually offered with low fees, especially in retirement plans. For example, a 2060 TDF is designed for individuals planning to retire in 2060. Lowering the minimum institutional investment amount enabled SMEs, previously using retail TDFs, to redeem and move to institutional TDFs with lower fees. This sudden redemption caused the remaining investors in retail TDFs to bear unexpected tax burdens.

• Trump flies on Air Force plane to Washington as Biden sticks to tradition

B↑2📆 Headline Digest

• SpaceX’s Starship explodes in flight test, forcing airlines to divert

Upper stage communication with the rocket packed with mock satellites failed.

• Yen set for best week in over a month on BOJ rate hike bets

Yen climbed 1.5% against the dollar with bets pricing in 80% chance of rate hike next week.

• Bird feathers, blood found in two engines of Boeing jet that crashed in South Korea -source

• China’s fourth-quarter GDP grows at 5.4%, beating market expectations as stimulus measures kick in

• Apple has worst day since August following reports of China, AI struggles

$AAPL fell 4%, down 12% from its peak in December

• Trump’s Treasury pick Bessent says heavier Russia sanctions coming, no reason for digital currency

Bessent says gov spending is out of control, Trump won’t cause more inflation, Fed should remain independent.

• Nintendo reveals long-awaited Switch 2 console set to launch this year

Slightly taller, otherwise same.

• Duolingo shares climb 7% as users swarm to app to learn Mandarin

$DUOL climbed 7% as RedNote migrators seek to learn the language.

• EV, hybrid sales reached a record 20% of U.S. vehicle sales in 2024

wow

• Meta’s ‘Community Notes’ model will not apply to paid ads

B↑2📆 Headline Digest

• Israel and Hamas reach Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal

The war has been going on for 15months. Israeli government expected to accept.

• TikTok’s U.S. operations could be worth as much as $50 billion if ByteDance decides to sell

TikTok has 115m monthly users in the US, Instagram has 131m. Kevin O’Leary put in an offer at $20b.

• TikTok prepares to shut down app in US on Sunday, sources say

The Washington Post reportedly says Trump may suspend the enforcement for 60-90days.

• Hindenburg Research founder says he’s closing short-seller research shop

Hindenburg Research is famous for shorting Nikola.

• Apple fourth-quarter iPhone shipments in China drop 25% as Huawei closes in, Canalys data shows

Huawei’s shipment rose 24%, bringing the market shares of the two companies to a tie.

• UK borrowing costs plunge, heading for first daily decline in 2025 as inflation fears ease

Yields fall after seeing softer CPI in the US.

• US inflation relief dents dollar, yen gains ahead of BOJ

Dollar slipped near 1% compared to JPY

• Japan wholesale inflation steady near 4%, keeps alive BOJ rate-hike chance

BOJ governor Ueda may raise rates in the Jan 23-24 meeting.

• Exclusive-Apple in talks with Barclays, Synchrony to replace Goldman in credit card deal, sources say

• Bank of Korea unexpectedly holds policy rate amid won slide

Only 7 out of 34 economists polled by Reuters forecasted rates to stay flat at 3%

• Trump’s US Treasury pick Bessent says dollar must remain world’s reserve currency

• US stock futures steady after Wall St rallies on soft CPI, strong bank earnings

B↑2📆 Headline Digest

• Musk accused by SEC of cheating Twitter investors out of millions

SEC claims Musk failed to report a section 13(d) filing which one must after accumulating more than 5% equity.

• December CPI report expected to show sticky inflation as investors recalibrate rate cut bets

Dec CPI is to be released at 8:30am ET Wednesday.

• German economy contracts 0.2% in 2024 in second consecutive annual slowdown

German economy contracted 0.3% in 2023.

• Nvidia-backed AI video platform Synthesia doubles valuation to $2.1 billion

The British firm Synthesia, makes AI generated clips of multilingual human avatars.

• Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for ‘intense year’ — read the internal memo

Low performers will be let go by Feb 10.

• Oil steadies near $80 as IEA sees smaller surplus this year

• IEA says new US sanctions could significantly disrupt Russian supply

US sanction from last Friday listed 160 tankers, which accounts for 22% of Russian seabourne oil exports.

• China’s Central Bank pumps near-historic level of cash into financial system

PBOC injected $131b of cash in open market operation reverse repurchase agreement

• Tesla to suspend part of new Model Y lines in China for upgrades, Bloomberg News reports

• These Chinese apps have surged in popularity in the U.S. A TikTok ban could ensnare them

The Chinese Lemon8 and RedNote has seen a surge in popularity.

• South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol arrested as agencies probe his short-lived martial law decree