Wall Street slightly up; Gold is at a new high

17:00

stock Warner Brothers Discovery increases by more than 3% afterParamount Skydance announced that Larry Ellison, co-founder oforacle announced that he would be a personal guarantor of the amended offer to purchase the company. “Larry Ellison has agreed to provide a personal guarantee of $40.4 billion to finance the capital required for the offer, as well as any claim for damages against Paramount,” the company said in a statement.

stock Nvidia Up at this time by about 2.4%, after a Reuters report indicated that the chip maker wants to start shipping the H200 chips to China by mid-February. According to the report, the expected volume of shipments is 5,000 to 10,000 chip modules, which is about 40,000 to 80,000 H200 chips. However, Reuters added that since China has not yet approved purchases of the chips, the schedule may change depending on the decisions of the Chinese government.

US President Donald Trump said earlier this month that he would allow Nvidia to start shipping the chips to “approved customers” in China and other countries, provided the US gets a 25% share of the deal.

In the crypto market, Bitcoin is now up 2.3% and its price is around $90,000, Ethereum is now up 2.9% and its price is $3,063.

16:33

Trading in the US opened with slight gains, with the Nasdaq rising by about 0.7%, the S&P500 strengthening by about 0.5% and the Dow Jones adding about 0.4% to its value.

European stock markets continue to fall: the DAX index falls by 0.1%, the CAC index loses 0.5% of its value and the FTSE falls by about 0.6%.

The asset management company Janos will be acquired in exchange for 7.4 billion dollars by the funds Trian Fund Management and General Catalyst, according to a publication of the companies.

15:27

Wall Street futures continue the momentum of the last few days after the US inflation release. Nasdaq and S&P 500 are up 0.6% and 0.4% respectively. Dow unchanged.

On the other hand, Europe, after the green opening moved to declines. The Paris and London stock exchanges fall by 0.4%, Frankfurt is unchanged.

11:15

The price of gold soared to an all-time high as escalating geopolitical tensions and bets on further US interest rate cuts added momentum to its best annual performance in more than four decades.

The precious metal rose more than 1.5% and crossed the previous record of $4,381 per ounce, set in October. Traders are betting that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates twice in 2026, after a flurry of economic data released last week, and at the same time US President Donald Trump has also called for more expansionary monetary policy. Low interest rates tend to support the prices of non-interest-bearing precious metals.

10:42

Trading in Europe is currently running in a mixed trend – the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is up by about 0.4%, London and Paris are down slightly.

08:50

In Asia morning increases – Tokyo increases by 1.9%, Shanghai by 0.6% and Hong Kong increases by 0.2%, in India increases by about 0.5%.

China’s central bank left interest rates unchanged on Monday, despite the world’s second-largest economy showing weak economic data and continuing to deal with a prolonged recession in the real estate industry.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) left the prime one-year and five-year lending rates unchanged at 3% and 3.5% respectively – for the seventh time in a row – in line with expectations in a Reuters poll. The one-year interest rate is used as a benchmark for new loans, while the five-year interest rate is used as an anchor for determining mortgage interest rates. The bank’s decision comes against the backdrop of disappointing economic data from China in November, in which retail sales and industrial production were lower than expected.

Wall Street contracts are also rising this morning – Nasdaq up 0.4%, S&P 500 up 0.2%, and Dow Jones up slightly.

In the afternoon, the three major indexes will open the last seven trading days of 2025 and are less than 3% away from their highs.

In the coming week, investors (those who stay through the holiday) will focus on expectations for the Santa Claus Rally, while several economic data released this week will clean up some of the data accumulated after delays due to the government shutdown.

In trading on Friday, the positive trend continued after a day earlier, a lower-than-expected, albeit controversial, inflation figure strengthened expectations for continued interest rate cuts next year. If this continues, maybe we will experience the Santa Claus Rally after all. Traditionally, the US stock market tends to post an increase in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. The Santa Claus period is the last five trading days of December and the first two trading days of January, this will start this Wednesday.

Wall Street believes the trade in AI technology stocks isn’t over yet, but investors have simply become pickier about who the winners might be heading into 2026.

Technology stocks experienced a rollercoaster ride recently, after concerns over Oracle’s data center funding rocked AI stocks. “I certainly believe that these are very legitimate concerns for the sector, and now that the market is pulling out the ‘audit scalpel’, we are finally seeing a proper distinction between ‘winners and losers’ – which is a positive thing,” wrote Nomura analyst Charlie McElligott.

However, particularly strong results from Micron sparked a rally in AI stock trading. The memory chip maker beat Wall Street forecasts in revenue and earnings per share in the first quarter, aided by accelerated demand from the artificial intelligence sector. McElligott compared the positive surprise in Micron’s reports to Nvidia’s May 2023 results, which served as a catalyst for the broader AI boom. “Bottom line – there’s still quite a bit of value to be derived from this AI gem,” McElligott wrote.

Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that the earnings of the S&P 500 index will grow by more than 12% in 2026, with most of the growth being driven by the seven largest stocks in the index: Meta, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Micron, Apple and Broadcom. Together, they are responsible for about a quarter of the profits of the entire index.

This week we are heading into a shortened trading week, which means that turnovers are expected to be low and may increase volatility. On Christmas Eve Wednesday, there will be an early lock and on Thursday there will be no trading, as is the case in all stock exchanges in the world. On Friday, trading in the US will be conducted as usual.

Despite this, a number of data releases are expected, including the core price index of private expenditure (PCE) for the month of October and a first glimpse (if it is late) of the growth rate of the economy between July and September. Beyond that, few scheduled publications from companies or central banks are expected, but investors will also follow the developments in the battle to take over Warner Brothers as well as the process of choosing the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.

On Tuesday, a preliminary estimate of the US GDP in the third quarter and the monthly index of consumer confidence will be released, and on Wednesday weekly data on new claims for unemployment benefits.

In the global debt market – many forces are pushing for the increase in long-term yields in the world.

The 10-year yield in Japan rose above 2% for the first time since the late 1990s in response to rising interest rates in the country. France’s 10-year yield rose to its highest level since 2011. In Germany, a record since 2023 was also broken, although inflation in Europe was surprisingly slightly downward. In the US, a combination of the weak labor market data with the surprising drop in inflation lowered the 10-year yield by only 0.04% in the weekly summary.

According to Alex Zabrzynski, the main reasons pushing for the rise in yields are the investors’ assessment that a turnaround in central bank policy is approaching after a period of interest rate cuts. “The ECB and the central banks in Sweden and Norway left interest rates unchanged last week. The Bank of England decided to lower interest rates by a narrow majority despite the surprising and significant drop in inflation. In Canada, Europe, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand, the markets assume that the next step of the central bank will be an interest rate increase.”

Zebzienski says that the borrowing needs of the governments of the G-7 countries are also growing rapidly. If in the years 2017-19 the G7 countries together raised about 1.3-1.5 trillion dollars a year, in the years 2025-2027 the amounts are expected to increase to 2.9-3.5 trillion dollars, “Investors outside the US are buying less US government bonds, recently there has been a decrease in the holdings of commercial banks in the US in government bonds, another factor that may weaken demand Government bonds have the fastest growth in corporate bond issuances, which accelerated in the second half of the year to a record high. It is possible that the increase in issuances is due to financing needs of AI infrastructures. Volatility in digital currencies continues. Bitcoin is still trading below NIS 90,000, far from the peak it reached at the beginning of October when it surpassed the 120,000 dollar mark.

● Commentary | How to invest and what to watch out for: gold and silver are the big winners of 2025

After last year’s historic rise, cocoa prices are on track for a record annual drop. But there is no sign that the prices of the chocolate coated sweets or snacks will drop soon, because the manufacturers are still working with the stocks (beans) they bought at the height of the increase. Also, they made changes to recipes that are not easy to reverse.

The producers and analysts expect that the cheaper cocoa will start to affect the supermarket shelves only in the second half of next year, even that is really not certain. This means that households will have to continue to consider whether chocolate remains an affordable snack.

Last year, cocoa prices soared to a record of nearly $13,000 a tonne as disease and extreme weather conditions devastated crops in Ivory Coast and Ghana, which supply more than half of the world’s cocoa. Prices fell as crops improved, demand weakened and some of the concerns about prolonged shortages faded. This year they are down about 50%, on track for the steepest annual decline since records began in 1960.

The surge in prices left a deep mark on the industry, as each of the major food companies to small artisan chocolatiers across Europe and the US – fought to get enough cocoa and balance costs against profits. Some had to fight for their survival. Now, they will not rush to lower prices for the consumer.

According to Bloomberg, Lambertz, one of Germany’s oldest candy makers, has enough cocoa stock to last almost until mid-2026, having bought it when prices were high. Owner Hermann Bühlbecker said, “There has never been such an explosion in prices.”

Some of the major chocolate manufacturers refrain from giving an indication of price changes, citing the volatility of the cocoa market. Nestle said that while the latest price changes are encouraging, it is still too early to comment on specific changes. The Hershey Company expected some of the “deflation” to begin occurring “in the depths of 2026,” said CFO Steve Waskill.

Macro in the USA – Blider points out that the inflation data for the month of November published at the end of the week, although it was relatively low compared to expectations, but they should be treated with caution.

According to them, the government shutdown that lasted 43 days postponed the collection of data to the second half of November, a period characterized by many price promotions around the holiday season. In addition, in most of the sections prices were not measured for the month of October, which limits the ability to compare. Therefore, it will be necessary to wait for the December index to get a more complete and accurate picture of the inflation trend.