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Briefing.com Summary:
*The market had to contend with a three-headed monster of tariffs, AI displacement, and private credit concerns.
*AMD is up big on news of a big deal with Meta Platforms.
*The major indices are posied to start today on an up note.
The stock market went through the "Big D" yesterday and we don't mean Dallas. We mean it went through another disruption trade that was a three-headed monster of tariffs, AI displacement, and private credit concerns.
That disruption manifested itself in broad-based selling interest and defensive positioning that sent Treasury yields lower and counter-cyclical sectors higher.
Things have calmed down a bit this morning, but the disruption worries have not been fully cast aside, not with Anthropic holding an enterprise agent event today, FedEx (FDX) filing a lawsuit to get a refund of tariffs, Bitcoin prices continuing to slide, and President Trump readying to deliver his State of the Union Address tonight, which he declared will be a long speech.
Currently, the S&P 500 futures are up 12 points and are trading 0.2% above fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are up 120 points and are trading 0.5% above fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are up 165 points and are trading 0.4% above fair value.
Home Depot (HD) has provided some ballast for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It is up 3.4% after posting better-than-expected fiscal Q4 earnings and issuing in-line full-year guidance. However, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has grabbed the spotlight with news of a 6-gigawatt agreement to power Meta's (META) next generation AI infrastructure. That deal includes a peformance-based warrant for Meta to acquire 160 million shares of AMD, according to CNBC. AMD is up 9.9% in pre-market action.
In a separate bit of corporate dealmaking, Paramount Skydance (PSKY) provided Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) with a revised acquisition proposal, the terms of which have not been publicly disclosed, and WBD has said it is reviewing that offer in consultation with its financial and legal advisors.
That is a disruption story of another sort, as Paramount Skydance is aiming to knockout Netflix (NFLX) in its pursuit of WBD.
That fight isn't over and neither is the fight over tariffs and tariff refunds. There is some brain fog there from all the punches that have been thrown, which is partly why the market feels a little wobbly.
However, market participants are mostly dazed and confused from the AI disruption trade that is traversing the market, shaking confidence in business models and long-term earnings prospects.
The major indices should open today in a better state, but that matters little relative to how they close.
