Waymo suspends service in San Francisco as robotaxis stall during blackout
Waymo suspended its robotaxi service in San Francisco on Saturday evening after a massive blackout appeared to leave many of its vehicles stalled on city streets.
Numerous photos and videos posted to social media captured Waymo robotaxis stalled at roads and intersections as human drivers either passed them by or were stuck behind them.
Waymo said on Saturday that it had temporarily suspended service in the city due to the blackout. Spokesperson Suzanne Philion provided a similar statement to TechCrunch on Sunday morning.
“We have temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services in the San Francisco Bay Area due to the widespread power outage,” Philion said. “Our teams are working diligently and in close coordination with city officials to monitor infrastructure stability, and we are hopeful to bring our services back online soon. We appreciate your patience and will provide further updates as soon as they are available.”
The company did not provide an explanation for why the blackout had such a dramatic effect on its vehicles. One possible culprit: The blackout took down many of the city’s traffic lights. (In fact, with the blackout affecting both lights and Muni mass transit, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie warned residents to stay off the roads unless they needed to travel.)
Others theorized that Waymo might have been affected by an interruption in cell service or traffic data.
The blackout appears to have been caused by a fire at a Pacific Gas & Electric substation in the city. SFGate reports that around 120,000 PG&E customers were affected by the blackout, and while the majority of them had power restored by late Saturday, 35,000 customers were still without power on Sunday morning. PG&E’s website also showed thousands of San Francisco customers still affected at that time.
A letter from Tiger Global Management leaked earlier this month said that Waymo is now providing 450,000 robotaxi rides per week, nearly double the amount that the Alphabet-owned company disclosed in the spring.
The SpaceX Explosion That Put Flights in Danger
Three planes flew through a temporary no-fly zone in January as air-traffic controllers scrambled to get planes to safety; federal officials halted an internal review of rocket debris risks
- SpaceX’s Starship explosion in January posed a greater danger to air travel than previously known, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.
- Three flights carrying a total of 450 people declared fuel emergencies and flew through a temporary no-fly zone after the explosion.
- The FAA suspended a safety panel’s review of rocket-debris risks in August, but agency says many recommendations were already being implemented.
A JetBlue JBLU 1.27%increase; green up pointing triangle plane was en route to Puerto Rico when its pilots got word from air-traffic control they were about to fly through a danger zone.
The plane initially went into a holding pattern to stay safe.
“You want to go to San Juan,” an air-traffic controller told the JetBlue flight crew, “it’s going to be at your own risk.”
The risk that January evening was from an experimental SpaceX rocket ship that exploded minutes after liftoff. The jet’s pilots had a decision to make while positioned north of San Juan: continue the trip through a possible rocket debris field, or risk running low on fuel over water.
Two other planes—one operated by Iberia Airlines and a private jet—ended up in a similar quandary. They declared fuel emergencies and traveled through the temporary no-fly zone, Federal Aviation Administration records show.
All three flights, which records show carried a total of some 450 people, landed safely.
FAA documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show the Jan. 16 explosion of SpaceX’s Starship posed a greater danger to planes in the air than was publicly known.
The explosion rained fiery debris across parts of the Caribbean region for roughly 50 minutes, the documents said. A piece of debris striking an aircraft in flight could have catastrophic consequences: severe damage to planes and passenger fatalities.
A JetBlue spokesman said the airline is confident that all its flights safely avoided places where debris was reported or observed. An Iberia spokeswoman said its flight went “through the area after all the actual debris had already fallen, so there was no safety risk.”
Air-traffic controllers scrambled to keep planes away from the debris areas, but that increased their workload and led to a “potential extreme safety risk,” according to one FAA report from an air-traffic facility in New York. After the explosion, at least two aircraft flew too close to each other, requiring a controller to intervene to avoid a collision.
The documents also said that SpaceX didn’t immediately inform the agency about the explosion through an official hotline. The FAA requires launch operators to use the hotline to quickly alert a failure. Controllers need the information about debris areas to warn pilots and get them out of harm’s way.
The no-fly debris zones were activated four minutes after the Starship vehicle began to stop providing data about its test flight, FAA documents show. SpaceX confirmed with the agency that Starship was disintegrating 15 minutes after that, according to the documents.
Controllers in Miami first heard of the explosion from pilots seeing the debris, documents show. Other FAA officials learned of the incident via an internal chat.
SpaceX, the world’s busiest rocket launcher, declined to comment. After this article was published, SpaceX said the Journal’s reporting was misleading and described the piece as containing incomplete information.
“For every Starship flight test, public safety has always been SpaceX’s top priority. No aircraft have been put at risk,” the company said in a post on X. “SpaceX is committed to responsibly using airspace during launches and reentries, prioritizing public safety to protect people on the ground, at sea, and in the air.”
The explosion of the company’s Starship vehicle alarmed airline industry and U.S. government officials, given the effect it had on air travel and because the number of space operations is set to rise.
FAA leaders convened a panel of experts in February to re-examine how to deal with debris risks from spaceflight failures, following up on earlier work on the issue. That effort gained urgency in March after a Starship vehicle exploded during another test launch.
But FAA officials suspended the safety review in August, an unusual move because the agency’s own policies call for such reviews to address safety risks, according to people familiar with the matter. The agency would deal with debris risk at a different policymaking level, an FAA official said in an email reviewed by the Journal.
The agency said it halted the review because most of the group’s safety recommendations were already being implemented and it needed to consult additional experts, including those outside the U.S.
“The FAA will not hesitate to act if additional safety measures are required,” the agency said.
More launches, more risk?
The FAA oversees planes navigating U.S. airspace and licenses commercial rocket launches, as well as missions where vehicles return to Earth from space.
Debris could become more of a safety risk as the pace of rocket launches increases. In a recent forecast, the FAA said it expected to oversee an annual average of about 200 to 400 rocket launches or re-entries in the years ahead. That compares with roughly two dozen of those operations on average each year between 1989 and 2024.
SpaceX, led by Chief Executive Elon Musk, wants to power many of those flights with Starship.
Standing more than 400 feet tall, Starship is the most powerful rocket ever developed, according to the company. SpaceX has been advancing the vehicle through test missions that lift off from its complex outside Brownsville, Texas. During those flights, Starship is designed to ascend over the Gulf of Mexico, which the U.S. now calls the Gulf of America, fly through space and splash down in the Indian Ocean.
With 11 Starship missions under its belt, SpaceX is planning future flights that would take the spacecraft over Florida, Mexico and North Atlantic airplane routes.
Developing new rockets involves trial and error—and sometimes, explosions. One-third of rockets active since 2000 failed on their maiden flights, according to data from Chris Kunstadter, a longtime space-insurance executive.
SpaceX has long viewed setbacks as a way to gain data to make improvements, and has used the approach during Starship’s development. “With a test like this, success comes from what we learn,” the company said after a November 2023 Starship mission.
After failures during that flight, the FAA took another look at debris risks and procedures for air-traffic controllers. The agency had previously developed a way to deal with “catastrophic risk to air traffic interacting with space missions” by creating temporary no-fly zones called debris response areas, according to the internal documents reviewed by the Journal.
The areas are outlined before each rocket launch and get activated only when a mishap could result in debris falling. When triggered, air-traffic controllers are supposed to direct aircraft out of and away from affected areas, provide alternate routes or have planes hold positions in the air.
But the areas drawn up for the January launch only included U.S. airspace with radar coverage. That left a pocket of foreign airspace that could face the same debris risks, but where flying would be permitted.
‘Did not go well’
At 5:37 p.m. Eastern on Jan. 16, SpaceX launched Starship on its seventh test flight. Mission goals included analyzing the performance of upgrades to Starship’s propulsion system and heat-shield tiles.
The flight ended prematurely—and spectacularly—more than eight minutes later.
Some pilots and passengers on flights around the Caribbean could see the fiery debris shower from their cockpits and cabins.
Jose Rodriguez, then a pilot for the regional airline Silver Airways, reported to air-traffic control “seeing pieces of debris and intense fire between the 1 and 2 o’clock position” while operating a flight to San Juan, according to an FAA report.
“It was impressive,” Rodriguez said in an interview. He initially thought it was space trash burning up in the atmosphere, at a safe distance hundreds of miles away.
A controller informed him it was actually a “rocket launch that did not go well,” according to the FAA report. His flight continued normally.
Bob Beresh saw the explosion from his window seat on a Delta Air Lines flight from Barbados to Atlanta. “It was amazing,” said Beresh, a commercial photographer and self-described space geek. But he later wondered: “What would have happened if we were closer?”
Delta said the airline had no reports that any of its flights operated close to space debris. The airline said four of its flights were diverted due to the explosion for refueling that night.
Closer to the debris zones, controllers in San Juan, Puerto Rico, radioed pilots to figure out how to keep them away from potential danger. They put some aircraft into holding patterns and rerouted others if they had enough fuel.
A controller told one aircraft’s crew they’d have to declare an emergency to land at San Juan. “In that case,” a pilot responded, “we declare emergency: Mayday. Mayday, Mayday.”
In a post on X about after the explosion, Musk said: “Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!”
Capt. Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association union, called for better communication with aviators, flight dispatchers and airlines so they can better plan for rocket launches. Those measures could include loading more fuel, finding alternate routes or delaying departures. “We shouldn’t be getting surprised when this happens,” Ambrosi said.
Residents of island territory Turks and Caicos later reported finding scraps of burned rubber and destroyed heat tiles that had washed ashore.
In February, SpaceX said in a post on its website about the seventh flight that, “While an early end to the flight test is never a desired outcome, the measures put in place ahead of launch demonstrated their ability to keep the public safe.”
Shana Diez, a SpaceX executive focused on Starship, said at an industry event that month the company has a great relationship with the FAA’s air-traffic organization and works closely with that group. She said SpaceX wants to work with the FAA on improving air-traffic controllers’ real-time awareness of where launch vehicles are during flight and where any potential debris could end up.
If vehicles could be tracked in real time “you could almost treat it like a weather event,” she said. “There’s no technical reason that that type of system is not possible.”
Mission control
Before the FAA safety panel was done reviewing SpaceX’s January explosion, the agency allowed the company to launch a mission on the evening of March 6. That decision upset some participants, people familiar with the matter said.
The March Starship explosion ended with fewer problems for air travel. No planes reported declaring fuel emergencies or flying through rocket debris areas, according to FAA records and people familiar with the matter. Prior to the flight, the FAA also closed the gap in debris areas over international airspace.
By May, the FAA safety panel had identified high aviation-safety risks resulting from rocket mishaps, including an aircraft declaring an emergency or needing to suddenly land at an alternate airport, or controllers getting overloaded.
The suspension of the safety review in August came as a surprise to some panel members. Regulators at the FAA would be troubled if airplane manufacturers or airlines halted their own safety reviews before fixing problems, current and former FAA officials said.
The FAA said it won’t hesitate to convene another panel or do “whatever is needed” as it addresses safety issues. It said regulators who oversee its air-traffic unit will be part of the process.
SpaceX has conducted three more Starship launches since the March explosion. During one, the vehicle’s spacecraft didn’t quickly explode. It was able to fly for a longer period before it spun out of control, breaking apart near its intended splashdown location in the Indian Ocean.
Starship, in its last two missions, remained on the course set by the company.
Early next year, SpaceX is expected to launch a new and more powerful version of Starship.
Speaking on a podcast in September, Musk said that the vehicle “might have some initial teething pains because it’s such a radical redesign.”
Fed’s Hammack Is Inflation-Wary and Prefers Holding Rates Steady Into the Spring
The Cleveland Fed president, who will vote on rates in 2026, takes November’s cooler inflation reading ‘with a grain of salt’
- Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack believes interest rates should remain unchanged for several months and opposed recent cuts.
- She is more concerned about elevated inflation than the potential labor-market weakness.
- Hammack noted that November’s consumer-price index of 2.7% likely understated 12-month price growth due to data distortions.
- She suggests the neutral interest rate is higher than commonly believed, indicating that the Fed’s policy could be, on net, providing stimulus to the economy.
Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack said she doesn’t see any need to change interest rates for several months after the central bank cut rates at its last three meetings.
Hammack has opposed recent rate cuts because she is more worried about elevated inflation than the potential labor-market fragility that prompted officials to lower rates by a cumulative 0.75-point over the past several months. Hammack wasn’t a voting member on the rate-setting committee this year but will become a voter next year.
“My base case is that we can stay here for some period of time, until we get clearer evidence that either inflation is coming back down to target or the employment side is weakening more materially,” she said in an interview Thursday with The Wall Street Journal’s “Take On the Week” podcast.
Hammack said a favorable inflation reading for November released last week likely understated 12-month price growth due to data-collection distortions created by the government shutdown in October and the first half of November.
While the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the consumer-price index was up 2.7% from a year earlier in November, estimates that adjusted for the data-measurement difficulties “puts it closer” to the 2.9% or 3.0% figure that forecasters had broadly anticipated, she said.
“While it’s great to get this official BLS data back, I do take it with a grain of salt,” she said.
Hammack’s concern about lowering interest rates centers on her view that the so-called neutral level—which neither spurs nor slows the economy—is higher than widely believed and that the economy is primed for solid growth next year. The neutral rate can’t be directly observed, though it can be inferred from how the economy is faring.
“It feels to me like we’re maybe a little bit below” her estimate of the neutral rate, meaning the Fed’s policy could be, on net, providing stimulus, she said.
Hammack suggested the Fed didn’t need to change its benchmark interest rate, currently in a range between 3.5% and 3.75%, at least until spring. By then, she said, it would be able to better assess whether recent goods-price inflation was receding as tariffs are more fully digested through the supply chain.
The former Goldman Sachs executive said she is hearing from business leaders that higher input costs, including those due to tariffs, could lead them to make larger price increases in the first quarter. That is concerning, she said, given how inflation has been “stuck around this close-to-3% level for the better part of…18 months.”
Alcohol consumption falls to record low in Britain
Data suggests the trend is being driven by more moderate drinking habits rather than teetotalism
Christmas can be a boozy time of year but Britons are drinking less alcohol than before, as financial pressures, health concerns and an ageing population lead to cutbacks in consumption.
The average UK adult consumed 10.2 alcoholic drinks a week last year, the lowest figure since data collection began in 1990 and a decline of more than a quarter from the peak of 14 two decades ago, according to research company IWSR.
Teetotalism is not on the rise despite the decline in consumption, suggesting more moderate drinking habits have driven the trend.
“The population is ageing and older consumers physiologically don’t drink as much,” said Marten Lodewijks, IWSR president. “There are also elements of health consciousness . . . and the cost of living is up so people just can’t afford to ‘drink out’ as much.”
“Premiumisation” is also an emerging trend, as consumers seek out more expensive drinks while cutting back on how much alcohol they consume, helping the industry sustain revenues despite a decline in sales.
Despite the macro trend, most Britons are likely to be indulgent at least some time this week. A survey by charity Drinkaware found 57 per cent of UK adults expected to binge drink on Thursday, Christmas Day, rising to three-quarters of 18- to 34-year-olds.
IWSR’s latest estimate suggests the average UK adult still drinks more than the NHS recommended limit of 14 units of alcohol a week. For a 5% ABV beer, 10.2 drinks equate to more than 17 units.
While Generation Z — people of legal drinking age to 27 — consume less alcohol than previous generations at the same age, easing cost-of-living pressures have led more young Britons to turn their back on sobriety.
This autumn 79 per cent of Gen Z of legal age had consumed alcohol in the previous six months, up from 66 per cent in spring 2023, according to IWSR. Meanwhile, overall drinking rates among older Britons have remained stable.
While most developed European economies are registering a similar downward trend to the UK in the number of weekly drinks, the US recorded a far more noticeable uptick during the Covid-19 pandemic.
As a result, the UK reported lower figures than America for the first time on record in 2020, a trend that has continued in the years since.
Lodewijks said a lot more US consumption took place at home, and so was not as affected by the closure of bars and restaurants during Covid lockdowns.
“The UK pub culture is quite distinct. It’s very common to go to the pub after work on a Thursday and Friday; that’s not as true in the US,” he added.
UK pubs are banking on a holiday boost after months of sluggish sales, with the largest listed pub groups all reporting Christmas bookings far ahead of last year.
Dolf van den Brink, boss of Dutch brewer Heineken, told the FT in October that beer’s qualities as a “social lubricant” must play an important role in the debate about the harms of alcohol.
Pointing to early evidence of collective beer drinking in Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, he added: “Beer is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, consumer goods category.”
Market upheavals drive biggest gains since 2008 for macro hedge funds
Swings in the dollar, gold and government debt have been fertile territory for funds such as Rokos and Caxton
Macro hedge funds are enjoying their best year since at least 2008, as huge swings in the price of currencies, commodities and bonds have provided fertile conditions for traders.
An index from data provider HFR tracking the returns of such funds — which aim to profit from economic trends by trading equities, bonds and commodities — was up 16 per cent at the end of November, putting the sector on course for its most profitable year in data stretching back to 2008.
Hedge funds such as Andrew Law’s Caxton and Chris Rokos’s RCM have enjoyed returns which were well into the double digits this year, according to figures seen by the FT.
Macro managers say sharp market moves, such as the drop in the dollar triggered by Donald Trump’s trade war, a sell-off in long-term bonds, and a relentless gold rally, have offered the most favourable backdrop for the sector in many years.
“There’s plenty to work with, which doesn’t make it easy to get right,” said Ken Tropin, the founder and chair of macro fund Graham Capital, who said the firm’s discretionary portfolio managers had made most of their returns trading the dollar, gold and the US government bond market. “But at least there’s opportunity.”
Tropin said these portfolio managers relied on so-called “tactical”, or short-term, trading strategies this year, so that they could move quickly in asset classes such as currencies which were volatile in 2025.
While that approach started before the Trump administration unveiled broad tariffs in April, Tropin added, “that was really the wake-up call for everybody”.
Macro funds made money both by shorting the dollar, but also by piling into emerging market currencies and bonds, which rallied as a weaker dollar allowed countries to lower interest rates and refinance their debt more cheaply.
“Every underlying asset class like commodities, FX and bonds had great opportunities this past year,” said an executive at a large European family office that invests in hedge funds. “There was the exuberance in gold and precious metals, the bear market in US dollar, and the divergence between the actions of central banks including the Bank of England and Federal Reserve.”
The strong returns extend a renaissance for the sector which struggled during the decade of very low interest rates and muted volatility that followed the global financial crisis of 2008-9.
“If you didn’t make money this year as a macro fund it will be difficult to explain,” said one hedge fund executive in the sector.
Some funds also profited from a sell-off in long-term bonds driven by worries over excessive government borrowing in big economies, by betting on a growing gap between short-term and long-term borrowing costs.
Caxton and Graham both made money from such “steepener” trades, while Caxton also profited from rallies in gold and copper, according to people familiar with the funds’ performances. Caxton’s Global, the firm’s main fund which manages $10bn, was up 14 per cent to December 5, according to an investor, while Caxton Macro, the $9bn fund run personally by Law, was up 18 per cent.
The Absolute Return and Multi-Alpha Opportunity funds at Graham were up 8 and 13 per cent respectively at the end of November, according to people familiar with the figures. Rokos made 17.5 per cent up to the end of November, according to another person who had seen the numbers.
Greg Coffey, the Australian hedge fund star once nicknamed the “Wizard of Oz”, has emerged as one of the biggest winners this year. The flagship fund at his firm Kirkoswald Capital has made 21 per cent by mid-December, according to people familiar with the figures.
Both Graham and Rokos snapped up UK government debt when long-term borrowing costs soared to their highest levels this century, profiting as gilts rallied and yields fell back, according to people familiar with the trades.
Brevan Howard had a more mixed performance. Its Master Fund was up just 0.4 per cent as of the end of November, while its multi-manager fund Alpha Strategies, which uses a variety of investment approaches, was up 7.2 per cent over the same period, according to people familiar with the returns.
Brevan, Rokos, Caxton and Kirkoswald all declined to comment.
Foreign buyers snap up cheap UK companies as dealmaking hits new high
Year saw 74% rise in takeovers of British groups by overseas bidders, data shows
UK companies attracted a surge of interest from foreign buyers eager to capitalise on cheap valuations, driving British dealmaking in 2025 to a post-pandemic high, new data shows.
Overseas bidders agreed $142bn in takeovers of British companies over the past year, according to data from the London Stock Exchange Group. That marks a 74 per cent uptick from 2024.
The sharp rise in foreign takeovers outpaced a broader 20 per cent rise in UK mergers and acquisitions — which reached a total value of $367bn this year — to reach the highest levels since the pandemic-era boom.
“The UK stock market remains materially undervalued,” said Philip Noblet, head of UK & Ireland investment banking at Jefferies.
“The ratings are still poor to rival companies in the US, but also in Europe, so people keep coming . . . We’re going to see more strategic interest from overseas in 2026 and for bigger companies,” he added.
While the overall value of UK M&A rose 20 per cent, it was mainly driven by a rise in larger deals. The overall number of deals announced in the last year fell 16 per cent. One such headline deal was Anglo American’s $50bn merger with Canadian rival Teck Resources, having rebuffed repeated takeover attempts by Australia’s BHP.
The UK’s bumper year is in the context of a wider dealmaking frenzy, particularly in the US, where President Donald Trump’s deregulatory push has prompted a spate of megadeals topping $10bn.
Just over half of foreign acquisitions for UK companies involved an American buyer, far ahead of any other country, such as DoorDash’s £2.9bn acquisition of Deliveroo.
Private capital investors have been particularly eager bidders for UK assets, with top transactions for the year including the £5.7bn acquisition of Pensions Insurance Corporation by the Apollo-backed European insurer Athora, and Advent’s $4.8bn deal to acquire a majority stake in a portfolio of Reckitt cleaning products.
One particularly popular strategy has been private equity takeovers of publicly listed companies; one reason why London has lost core constituents of its public markets.
Some London-listed groups such as the £4.8bn industrial group Spectris and the £2.7bn fund administrator JTC were acquired by private equity firms KKR and Permira respectively after competitive bidding processes.
The deals also highlighted how UK boards are pushing suitors for higher bids to compensate for their relatively lower valuations. KKR’s final offer for Spectris represented a close to 100 per cent premium compared to the company’s share before a bidding war broke out.
“UK boards have got more self-confidence [ . . . ] boards are likely to hold out on premia for takeover bids that are on average higher than has historically been the case,” said Murray Cox, a partner at the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges.
Other significant transactions in the past year include Santander’s £2.65bn acquisition of high street lender TSB.
“Where is M&A happening in the UK? It is in the products we have to sell, which is services; professional services, financial services,” said James Howe, co-head of European M&A at the law firm Simpson Thacher.
The surge of foreign takeovers for UK companies contrasts with domestic dealmaking, which plunged 54 per cent to about $44bn, the lowest level since 2016.
Domestic dealmakers have had to contend with economic uncertainty both overseas — driven by Trump’s widespread tariff plan — and the wait for the UK’s new budget in late November.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ budget drove taxes to an all-time high, but it was preceded by weeks of uncertainty that broadly forced dealmakers to sit on the sidelines.
There remains a large number of transactions still in the works: BP is in talks to sell its lubricants business to the infrastructure investor Stonepeak, and Comcast’s Sky is in talks to buy ITV’s television business.
Meanwhile, the private capital owners of UK wealth manager Evelyn Partners, and the UK’s two roadside recovery businesses AA and RAC are all exploring exits.
“You continue to have an economy whose performance is relatively muted and where GDP forecasts have been downgraded, so that creates a necessity for companies to find growth,” said Anthony Parsons, executive chair of investment banking and capital markets at Deutsche Bank. “Private equity continues to see the UK as a very fertile ground for investment.”
CWAN US
Cover:
-‘On any given Sunday,’ Americans watch football viewing while participating in prediction markets, particularly through platforms like Kalshi. Last weekend, NFL fans made over $200M in trades on Kalshi, with integration into Robinhood's popular trading app, allowing users to invest their NFL profits into stocks such as Nvidia and Nike. Robinhood aims to simplify investments by adding NFL contracts, but this raises concerns about the distinction between gambling and investing. Experts like James Martielli express that the boundaries between these areas are increasingly blurred, particularly with Robinhood's introduction of parlay-style trades, which need multiple outcomes to pay out. Traditional firms like Vanguard and Charles Schwab remain cautious, calliing for a clear division between investing and gambling to protect young investors' financial understanding.
Interview:
-Charles Schwab CEO, Rick Wurster, told Barron’s that his firm manages $11.8T across 46M client accounts, emphasizing its reach in retail and independent advising. Notably, one in six new clients is from Generation Z, with 60% of newcomers under 40, reflecting Schwab's appeal to younger investors. The firm plans to introduce spot crypto trading in 2026. Wurster highlighted the diverse investment options available to clients, noting that half of the assets come from retail, while the independent advisor channel has gained popularity due to fiduciary relationships. Schwab's robust educational resources, including 35 hours of live content weekly tailored for young investors, contribute to their growth within this demographic. The firm recorded approximately $400B in net new assets year-to-date, attributed to new acquisitions and favorable market conditions, maintaining historically high growth rates for the last 15 years.
Tech Trader:
-Micron Technology reported impressive earnings, surpassing expectations and offering strong guidance for the upcoming quarter. This performance underscores a significant projected memory shortage in 2026 that could exceed previous chip supply issues from 2020 and 2021, benefiting memory companies at the expense of their customers. Despite a 53% sales decline in Q2 of fiscal 2023, Micron's sales grew by 57% in the recent quarter, and it forecasts a revenue growth of 132% for the next quarter. The AI investment surge is altering the traditional memory cycle, with high-bandwidth memory (HBM) gaining prominence, especially in AI servers. The global server market saw a 61% growth, with major memory manufacturers reallocating resources to capitalize on HBM's high margins.
The Trader:
-President Trump announced $1,776 bonuses for military members in connection to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He is also considering issuing an executive order hat would restrict defense companies from paying dividends or buying back stock if projects are delayed or over budget. Analysts have criticized this potential order, arguing that it overreaches and suggesting that contractors should self-regulate capital allocations. The aerospace and defense sector's track record of significant reinvestments indicates that penalties for nonperformance should not affect capital allocation decisions. Historically, dividends have been a major component of stock market returns, benefiting a majority of US households.
-The competition between Waymo and Tesla for dominance in the robotaxi market is intensifying, as highlighted by Waymo's recent move to raise an additional $15B, potentially valuing the company at $110B. Controlled by Alphabet, Waymo plans to use this capital for expansion into new cities, growing from its current five locations—San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Phoenix, and Atlanta—to a target of twelve, including major cities like New York, Miami, London, and Tokyo. Tesla, however, has the advantage of mass production capabilities, enabling it to manufacture millions of cars annually, all equipped with the necessary hardware for advanced self-driving technology.
Features:
-Tencent Holdings has accessed Nvidia's high-end artificial intelligence chips, specifically the Blackwell series, through a cloud service operated by Tokyo-based Datasection. This access is significant as it circumvents recent US restrictions that prohibit Chinese companies from directly owning these chips, following a semiconductor agreement involving President Trump. The arrangement is seen as a regulatory loophole, as Tencent becomes a potentially prominent user of these chips, which are primarily aimed at maintaining US leadership in AI technology. Datasection has acquired 15,000 GPUs from Nvidia for data centers in Japan and Australia, intended to serve one of the world's largest cloud-service providers - reportedly Tencent. Although Datasection's CEO did not confirm Tencent's identity as the client, Nvidia indicated that the export rules permit cloud operations in non-controlled countries. This situation raises concerns that it conflicts with recent assurances from Trump that these advanced technologies would remain unavailable to China.
-As Christmas approaches, the stock market's potential for a Santa rally seems uncertain, with the S&P 500 currently in decline for December. Despite predictions of even double-digit gains for 2026 from strategists, recent performance raises investor concerns about stability. Some investors are betting on a significant market selloff in 2026, while options trading indicates a 10% chance of a 30% market drop. Historical data suggests that drops of this magnitude occur every 12.7 years. Optimism is challenged by unpredictable economic conditions influenced by tariffs, and experts caution against assuming linear growth from current fiscal measures.
Europe:
-The European Central Bank (ECB) maintained its interest rates at 2%, marking the fourth consecutive meeting without changes, in contrast to the Bank of England (BOE), which reduced rates by 0.25% to 3.75% due to rising unemployment and inflation pressures. While the Eurozone shows resilient economic growth with inflation near the 2% target, the UK faces extra challenges as its inflation has decreased to 3.2%. Other regional banks, such as Sweden’s Riksbank and Norway’s Norges Bank, also kept rates unchanged. In Asia, the Bank of Japan could also raise rates, potentially impacting global borrowing and investment strategies.
Emerging Markets:
-This article was not in the Emerging Markets section, but it is relevant:
QatarEnergy could outpace the USA in liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capabilities as it scales up production from 77M tons to potentially 142M tons. This expansion, driven by a state-controlled structure, positions Qatar as the lowest-cost LNG producer globally. In contrast, the U.S. LNG market, characterized by diverse private companies, faces challenges amidst rising natural gas prices, currently peaking at $5/million British thermal units. This disparity could hinder US exports in a market with low international prices and weak demand, particularly affecting shipments to Europe. QatarEnergy is also expected to enhance its trading activities significantly, with aspirations to dominate LNG markets in South and Southeast Asia.
Commodities:
-Silver prices have reached multiyear highs, closing at $59.32, which is significantly above its 50-day and 200-day moving averages by 22.6% and 59.9%, respectively. Research from Sundial Capital Research indicates that this deviation from average prices is historically significant and may signal an impending market reversal. Similar conditions previously led to substantial price declines in August 2020 and April 2011, where silver fell by 21.9% and 25.8%, respectively. This year alone, silver's price has more than doubled from $26.93 since January 2. Sundial highlights the silver market as facing a conflict between short-term upward momentum and long-term trends, characterizing it as a ‘widowmaker’ market due to its high volatility and potential for severe losses.
Streetwise:
-The growth potential for obesity medications should increase due to two key developments anticipated in 2026. First, Novo Nordisk is likely to launch an oral version of semaglutide, with Eli Lilly's orforglipron pill expected shortly thereafter. While Lilly's injectables currently show higher efficacy, the convenience of pills is likely to attract patients averse to injections. Morgan Stanley predicts that orforglipron will initially have modest sales but may surpass Zepbound by 2030, particularly outside the US Secondly, new Medicare and Medicaid agreements will allow broader, affordable access to these drugs, reducing patient copays to $50 monthly, which could significantly increase the number of users, especially among lower-income demographics and those previously using counterfeit medications.