TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, has agreed to spin off a new, American-controlled version of the video app to resolve years of legal and political threats that nearly pushed the platform out of the United States. A consortium of non-Chinese investors — including Oracle, Emirati investment firm MGX, Silver Lake and the personal investment office of Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell — will own more than 80 percent of the new U.S. TikTok, with ByteDance retaining just under a 20 percent stake. Adam Presser, TikTok’s former operations chief, will become chief executive of the American entity, whose seven-member board will be majority American and include TikTok chief executive Shou Chew. The restructuring is meant to address U.S. national security concerns that Beijing could use TikTok to surveil or influence more than 200 million American users, and it follows a 2024 law, upheld by the Supreme Court, that threatened a ban if TikTok did not cut operational ties with ByteDance.

The agreement follows a six-year saga in which universities, the U.S. military, Congress and both the Trump and Biden administrations tried to restrict or ban the app, culminating in a 14-hour blackout in the United States as a statutory deadline neared. Influencers lobbied lawmakers and protested to keep the platform, but some, like Los Angeles creator Naomi Hearts, now say they feel “detached” after years of uncertainty. Under the new structure, Oracle, MGX and Silver Lake will each hold 15 percent of U.S. operations, while ByteDance will continue to license its powerful recommendation algorithm to the American venture, a point critics say may violate the law’s requirement to end any “operational relationship.” Some experts and advocates worry the deal may simply swap “fears of foreign propaganda for the reality of domestic propaganda,” given several investors’ ties to President Donald Trump, even as others note that the final arrangement resembles earlier, abandoned proposals like “Project Texas,” leaving lingering questions about whether the core security issues have truly been resolved.

Intel reported fourth-quarter 2025 results that topped Wall Street estimates, but the stock plunged about 10–11% in after-hours trading after the chipmaker issued weaker-than-expected guidance for the current quarter. Adjusted earnings per share came in at 15 cents, nearly double the 8 cents expected, on revenue of $13.7 billion versus forecasts of about $13.4 billion. For the first quarter, however, Intel projected revenue between $11.7 billion and $12.7 billion and breakeven adjusted earnings, below analyst expectations of 5 cents per share on roughly $12.51 billion in sales. Finance chief David Zinsner said the soft outlook partly reflects supply constraints that are limiting Intel’s ability to fully meet seasonal demand, though he indicated supply should improve in the second quarter.

CEO Lip-Bu Tan told analysts the company is focused on improving manufacturing yields to boost product supply, noting that current yields are in line with internal plans but “still below” his target. Intel reported a net loss of $600 million, or 12 cents per diluted share, widening from a $100 million loss, or 3 cents per share, a year earlier, even as investors had driven the stock up more than 80% over the past year on optimism about its foundry strategy. The company said its 18A manufacturing technology, which competes with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s 2-nanometer process, “over-delivered” in 2025 and is ready for volume production, while it works “aggressively” to increase 18A supply amid strong customer demand. Foundry revenue reached $4.5 billion, Data Center and AI sales rose 9% year over year to $4.7 billion on robust demand for AI infrastructure, but Client Computing Group revenue from PC chips fell 7% to $8.2 billion. Intel also highlighted major 2025 investments from the U.S. government, SoftBank and Nvidia, and confirmed completion of a $5 billion stock sale to Nvidia during the quarter.

Capital One agreed to acquire Silicon Valley payments startup Brex for $5.15 billion in a cash-and-stock deal, deepening CEO Richard Fairbank’s push into business payments after last year’s roughly $35 billion takeover of Discover Financial. The bank disclosed the transaction in its fourth-quarter 2025 earnings statement, noting the consideration will be split 50% in cash and 50% in Capital One stock. Brex, which had been valued at $12.3 billion in 2023, is selling at a discount of more than 50%, underscoring the pressure on once high-flying fintechs amid tighter funding conditions. Capital One shares fell about around 5% in after-hours trading.

Fairbank, one of the few founder-CEOs still leading a major U.S. bank, said acquiring Brex “accelerates” Capital One’s effort to build a payments company “at the frontier of the technology revolution,” especially in the business payments market. He praised Brex for pioneering a vertically integrated model that combines corporate cards, banking products and spend-management software “from the bottom of the tech stack to the top.” Brex, founded by Pedro Franceschi and Henrique Dubugras, evolved from lending to startups into serving a broader mix of large companies and high-growth firms such as Robinhood, Zoom and AI startup Anthropic. Franceschi said Brex did not need to sell because growth was “incredibly strong,” but argued that pairing its technology with Capital One’s scale and resources would allow the platform to grow faster than it could as a standalone company.

Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of FTX’s trading arm Alameda Research and ex-partner of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, has been released from federal custody after serving about 14 months in connection with the multibillion-dollar FTX fraud. Ellison, 31, was sentenced in 2024 to 24 months in prison after pleading guilty to seven counts, including wire fraud and money laundering, and became a star witness for prosecutors by testifying that Bankman-Fried directed her to commit crimes. Her cooperation helped secure Bankman-Fried’s 25-year prison sentence and marked a pivotal moment in one of the largest financial fraud investigations in US history. The collapse of FTX, once among the world’s biggest cryptocurrency platforms, shook digital asset markets and intensified regulatory scrutiny of the industry.

Ellison began serving her sentence in a Connecticut federal facility before being moved in mid-October 2025 to community confinement, from which she was released on Wednesday, and she has been ordered to forfeit $11 billion in assets. Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw her case, said at sentencing that he had never seen such cooperation with prosecutors in three decades on the bench but still imposed prison time due to the seriousness of the offenses. Ellison’s role in the $8 billion fraud and her online writings made her a central and sometimes notorious figure in public coverage of the scandal, which has since spawned a planned Netflix adaptation starring Julia Garner as Ellison. Bankman-Fried remains in a low-security federal prison in Los Angeles and has sought a presidential pardon from Donald Trump, but Trump recently told the New York Times he has no plans to grant one.

Capital One Financial Corp. Chief Executive Officer Richard Fairbank warned that President Donald Trump’s push for a one‑year cap on credit card interest rates at 10% could trigger a US recession by sharply constricting consumer credit. Fairbank said the proposed one-year cap, framed by Trump as a response to borrowing costs and “affordability” concerns ahead of the midterm elections, would not make credit more affordable but instead “much less available” across the credit spectrum. He cautioned that a resulting “material contraction in available credit” would likely lead to multiple shocks throughout the economy and “greatly reduced consumer spending.” JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon echoed the alarm, calling the policy an “economic disaster.”

Major banks are already weighing how to respond, with Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. considering whether to offer new credit cards at the 10% rate Trump is demanding. The debate over the cap comes as Trump escalates his confrontation with large lenders, having sued JPMorgan and Dimon earlier in the day for at least $5 billion over allegations of politically motivated “debanking.” The Trump Organization filed a similar lawsuit against Capital One last year, accusing the bank of canceling its accounts for political reasons. Fairbank’s comments came on a conference call after Capital One, based in McLean, Virginia, reported its fourth-quarter results, underscoring how Trump’s broader campaign against high borrowing costs is colliding with Wall Street’s warnings about unintended economic fallout.

Financial Trends: Nucor heads into Q4 2025 earnings with year-to-date 2025 revenue up mid-single digits and consensus looking for roughly $7.8 billion in Q4 sales and high-single-digit 2025 growth amid still-elevated steel prices.

Strategic Initiatives: The company continues to deploy roughly $3 billion in annual capex to expand mills and downstream steel products, targeting higher-value segments tied to infrastructure, energy, and technology.

Key Metrics: Investors will watch realized steel prices, mill and products segment margins, shipment volumes by product, and EBITDA per ton, alongside any update to 2026 earnings and capex outlook.

Progress: Recent quarters showed improved profitability versus early 2025 with stronger mill pricing, solid products margins near mid-teens, and evidence that domestic mills are gaining share from imports.

Focus Areas: Expect focus on contract resets, backlog health, infrastructure- and energy-related demand, and how management frames 2026 pricing and volume versus a still-firm but normalizing cycle.

Risks Potential: Risks include cyclically softer steel demand, margin compression if prices roll over, execution on large capex projects, and policy shifts around tariffs that could alter domestic pricing power.

Concerns: After outsized earnings surprises and a strong run into 2026, some analysts argue that a stronger 2026 is largely priced in, raising the bar for guidance and capital-allocation commentary.

Market Trends: Nucor trades within a structurally tighter U.S. steel market supported by tariffs and onshoring, but investor sentiment will track leading indicators for construction, autos, and industrial production.

Financial Trends: Starbucks approaches Q1 2026 with analysts expecting roughly $2.35 in current-year EPS, implying low-double-digit growth off a softer FY 2025 base and setting up an acceleration toward about $3.02 by fiscal 2027.

Strategic Initiatives: Management is executing on store growth, digital engagement, and productivity investments such as Green Apron Service to drive higher transactions and better cost efficiency globally.

Key Metrics: Key watchpoints include global and U.S. same-store sales, traffic versus ticket mix, operating margin progression, and EPS versus the roughly $0.59 Q1 consensus and full-year EPS trajectory.

Progress: Despite mixed recent quarters with several EPS misses, Starbucks has outlined a path to improve comps and margins through menu innovation, operational efficiency, and disciplined capital deployment into high-return markets.

Focus Areas: Expect the call to center on comp momentum by region, progress on cost savings and staffing initiatives, China recovery signals, and how management bridges from 2025 earnings to its midterm EPS targets.

Risks Potential: Risks include consumer softness, competitive intensity in key coffee markets, wage and input-cost inflation pressuring margins, and any stumble in executing the productivity and growth plans.

Concerns: Investors remain sensitive to Starbucks’ recent track record of earnings misses and modest guidance resets, which heightens the importance of credible 2026 framing and visibility into comp and margin improvement.

Market Trends: The stock trades within a global QSR and beverage space where traffic is bifurcated by income cohort, and sentiment will track whether Starbucks can capture resilient premium demand while managing value perceptions.

Financial Trends: Apple enters Q1 2026 with fiscal 2025 revenue at roughly $416 billion, up mid-single digits year over year, and consensus now looking for low-double-digit top-line growth powered by iPhone and services.

Strategic Initiatives: Management is leaning on Apple Intelligence, higher-margin services, and the Vision Pro/spatial computing ecosystem to deepen ecosystem lock-in and drive incremental monetization per device.

Key Metrics: Investors will focus on total revenue and EPS versus the ~$138 billion and $2.65 consensus, services growth and margin, and iPhone unit and ASP trends through the holiday cycle.

Progress: Apple has re-accelerated growth with record September-quarter revenue and expanding services at ~15% plus growth and ~75% gross margin, reinforcing the durability of its installed base.

Focus Areas: Watch for commentary on Apple Intelligence rollout, Vision Pro uptake, China and India demand, and whether management frames fiscal 2026 as a sustained double-digit growth year.

Risks Potential: Key risks include smartphone saturation in mature markets, regulatory and App Store scrutiny, competitive AI offerings, and potential macro or FX pressure on hardware demand.

Concerns: Some investors remain wary that high expectations for AI-driven services and Vision Pro adoption are already embedded in valuation, leaving little room for guidance disappointment.

Market Trends: AAPL trades against a backdrop where AI leaders have driven most index returns, and sentiment will hinge on whether Apple convinces the street it is an AI and spatial-computing winner, not a late follower.

From a young age, Evan was fascinated by the stock market. At just 11 years old, he received a Wall Street Journal subscription for his birthday, sparking a lifelong passion for investing. Evan spent his formative years studying the strategies and philosophies of legendary investors like Paul Tudor Jones, Stanley Druckenmiller, and George Soros, absorbing their wisdom and developing his own unique approach to the markets.

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