Aaron McDade is a breaking news reporter for Investopedia. He is an experienced journalist who has covered everything from the latest in business and tech news to sports and international news like the war in Ukraine for respected outlets like Business Insider and Newsweek.
Stock futures are little changed this morning after major indexes hit record highs on Tuesday; President Donald Trump said that Venezuela would give the U.S. up to 50 million barrels of sanctioned crude; the ADP employment report for December showed that hiring in the private sector rebounded from the month before; Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said demand in China looks strong after the U.S. government approved the sale of H200 chips to customers in the country; and Warner Bros. Discovery’s board of directors has again told its shareholders that they should reject the takeover offer from Paramount Skydance and support its deal with Netflix. Here’s what you need to know today.
Stock futures are mixed but little changed this morning after another day of solid gains for U.S. equities on Tuesday. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were recently up 0.1%, while those linked to the S&P 500 and the tech-focused Nasdaq slipped 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively. The Dow and S&P 500 each closed at new record highs on Tuesday, with a number of tech hardware manufacturers leading a rally. Gold futures were down 0.8% at $4,460 an ounce, giving back some of the gains posted amid the uncertainty created by the U.S. ouster of Venezuela’s president over the weekend. Bitcoin was at around $92,000 recently, losing ground for the second day in a row after surging earlier this week to near $95,000, its highest level in a month. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which affects borrowing costs on a wide array of personal loans, fell to 4.14% from 4.18% at Tuesday’s close.
President Trump said Venezuela will soon start to turn over an estimated 30 million to 50 million barrels of “high quality, sanctioned oil” to the U.S., which will then be sold on the global oil market by American authorities. Trump also said that the money made from the sale of that oil would be controlled by him “to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States,” despite the Constitution giving Congress the authority to spend revenue brought in by the government. The Wall Street Journal also reported late Tuesday that the Trump administration is expected to meet with executives from several American oil companies including Chevron (CVX), ExxonMobil (XOM), and ConocoPhillips (COP) on Friday to discuss potential plans for the companies to invest in Venezuela. Shares of the oil majors surged on Monday after Trump said over the weekend that U.S. companies would “fix” Venezuela’s crumbling oil infrastructure, but the stocks tumbled yesterday.
The U.S. private sector added 41,000 jobs in December, according to human resources and payroll provider ADP. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal had forecast a gain of 48,000 jobs in the month, up from a surprise decline of about 32,000 jobs in November. The ADP report comes ahead of the highly anticipated release on Friday of the December jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The employment data is closely followed by the Federal Reserve, which has cut its key interest rate at each of its last three policy meetings owing to concerns about a weakening labor market. The Fed isn’t expected to cut rates at its policy meeting later this month, as inflation remains well above the central bank’s target range.
Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang said Tuesday that the chipmaking giant is seeing “quite high” demand in China for its H200 chips, according to the The Wall Street Journal. Last month, Trump announced that the government had approved a license for Nvidia to sell the chips to customers in China, with the U.S. government receiving a 25% cut of revenue. The Biden and Trump administrations have each restricted the ability of Nvidia and other chipmakers to sell advanced tech to China, over national security concerns that China could develop military capabilities with the AI powered by the chips. “President Trump has already said that the H200s are licensed to be exported, and now we have to go through the mechanics of that,” Huang said Tuesday at CES, per the Journal. “Once we get that done, I’m expecting the purchase orders to arrive.” Nvidia shares were up 0.5% in recent premarket trading.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) board of directors has again told its shareholders that they should reject the takeover offer from Paramount Skydance (PSKY) and support its deal with Netflix (NFLX). Despite Oracle (ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison agreeing to personally guarantee over $40 billion of the Paramount offer’s equity financing, the WBD board said in a Wednesday release the deal is still too risky. “Paramount’s offer continues to provide insufficient value, including terms such as an extraordinary amount of debt financing that create risks to close and lack of protections for our shareholders if a transaction is not completed,” board chair Samuel Di Piazza said. Warner Bros. Discovery shares edged lower, while Netflix shares rose slightly and Paramount shares were little changed. Shares of Parmount Skydance and Netflix were up slightly in premarket trading, while Warner Bros. Discovery fell less than 1%.
