#stock-market

#stock-market

Shares in Rocket Lab Corp were heading for their second day of gains on Monday after the aerospace manufacturer was named as one of four companies that will build tracking satellites for the U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA). The stock (Nasdaq: RKLB) was up more than 4% in premarket trading on Monday as of this writing. That's in addition to a jump of 17% on Friday when the news was announced. Share are now trading at record highs.

The company will merge with TAE Technologies-a privately held fusion energy firm that's backed by Alphabet, Chevron Technology Ventures, and others-in a deal that's worth more than $6 billion. It's an all-stock deal, which is expected to close sometime next year, and is a huge and eyebrow-raising move for Trump Media, which is best known as the owner of President Trump's social media platform, Truth Social.

Reports first emerged last week that the Trump administration might change marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug, which would lessen restrictions on it. On Monday, President Trump told reporters that he was "considering" the reclassification. "We are considering that because a lot of people want to see it-the reclassification, because it leads to tremendous amounts of research that can't be done unless you reclassify," Trump stated, according to CNN. "So, we are looking at that very strongly."

Technology stocks are buzzing this morning with a wave of developments. Among them, Tesla ( Nasdaq: TSLA) has captured the spotlight. Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives is calling 2026 a "monster year" for Tesla and Elon Musk as the EV maker leans harder into autonomous driving and robotics. He sees Tesla's valuation climbing to around $2 trillion next year, with a bull-case scenario of $3 trillion by year-end 2026 amid a successful AI strategy. Wedbush has reemphasized its "outperform" rating on TSLA stock.

The current dynamics playing out in the stock market are really hard to describe right now. On the one hand, there are pockets of the economy that are red-hot, with hundreds of billions of dollars flowing into high-powered growth trends like AI that are clearly propping up valuations across the board. On the other hand, the vast majority of stocks in the overall market may already be in bear market territory. That's representative of a weakening consumer, and the view that valuations may have gotten a bit too distorted in the post-pandemic era.

As we get ready to jump into the final month of 2025, S&P 500 futures are rallying. Up about 11 points, it's getting set to wrap up what's been a very volatile month. Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) is up about $1.65 this morning. The Dow Jones is up about 53, with the NASDAQ up about 72. Granted, we had a rough start to the day. All after CME trading came to a standstill following a cooling issue at one of its data centers.

The day of truth has finally come for the stock market and the AI/Datacenter/Hyperscaler trade, at least for now. NVIDIA Corp. ( NASDAQ: NVDA) will release perhaps the most anticipated set of quarterly results in the last 25 years or more at 5 PM EST today after the close. Wall Street is looking for earnings per share of $1.25 and a median revenue of $55 billion.

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF ( NYSEMKT: VOO) had its worst day in months on Thursday, falling 1.6%, and the selloff appears likely to continue as Friday dawns, with the ETF down another 1% premarket. And why? Your guess is as good as anyone else's. Theories range from worries that artificial intelligence isn't generating the efficiencies it was supposed to (such that investments in AI aren't paying off for companies using it) to fears that AI stocks have been bid up to unsustainable valuations.

Big Tech and other superstars of the U.S. stock market are rallying on Monday, as Wall Street recovers most of its loss from last week. The S&P 500 climbed 1.3% to claw back three-quarters of its drop from last week, which was its first weekly loss in four. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 245 points, or 0.5%, as of 1:15 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.1% higher. Nvidia was by far the strongest force lifting the market and rallied 4.8%.

"I'm not going to get ahead of the two leaders who will be meeting in Korea on Thursday, but I can tell you we had a very good two days," Bessent said. "So I would expect that the threat of the 100% [tariff] has gone away, as has the threat of the immediate imposition of the Chinese initiating a worldwide export control regime."

A chart making the rounds on social media has sparked intense debate about the state of the American economy. Since November 2022, when ChatGPT launched, the S&P 500 has surged more than 70% while job openings have plummeted roughly 30%. The juxtaposition has earned the graphic a foreboding nickname: the " scariest chart in the world."​ At first glance, the divergence appears to tell a simple story: that artificial intelligence has fractured the economy, enriching investors while devastating workers.

In May 2025 , Suze Orman predicted that the U.S. stock market will "absolutely skyrocket" through the remainder of the year and into early 2026. She urged long-term investors to stay invested rather than sell due to fear. Orman recommended building a broadly diversified portfolio by holding at least 25 to 50 individual stocks (or using index ETFs) to take advantage of growth. She specifically highlighted large-cap growth stocks and growth-oriented ETFs (e.g., SPYG, VUG) as likely to benefit in the near future.

Stocks had been heading for a slight gain in the morning, until Trump took to his social media platform and said he's considering "a massive increase of tariffs" on Chinese imports. He's upset at restrictions China has placed on exports of its rare earths, which are materials that are critical for the manufacturing of everything from consumer electronics to jet engines.