Drone footage of the Paramount sign in front of the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, California on December 8, 2025.
Daniel Cole | Reuters
paramount skydance The hostile takeover began on Monday. warner bros discoverycontinued Netflix Last week, it announced that it had reached an agreement to buy out the owners of HBO.
CEO David Ellison told CNBC that the company is “here to finish what we started,” upping the ante with an all-cash offer of $30 per share, compared to Netflix’s $27.75 per share cash and stock offer for WBD’s streaming and studio assets.
Investors were certainly happy, with Paramount stock up 9% and WBD stock up 4.4%.
Another development that traders cheered was US President Donald Trump’s approval. Nvidia The aim is to export the more advanced H200 artificial intelligence chip to “authorized customers” in China and other countries. As long as some of that money is repatriated to the U.S., Nvidia shares rose about 2% in after-hours trading.
But major US indexes fell overnight as investors awaited the Federal Reserve’s last interest rate meeting of the year on Wednesday. The market expects a nearly 90% chance of a quarter-point rate cut, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
Expectations for interest rate cuts pushed up stock prices. “The way the market has moved in the last week or two is really making a 25 basis point rate cut much more likely,” said Stephen Collano, chief investment officer at Integrated Partners.
But that means the potential downside if things don’t go as expected is more severe.
“If they don’t cut rates for some very unthinkable reason, forget it. I think the market is down 2-3%,” Collano added.
In that case, investors will look forward to next year’s Fed meeting and hope for a more satisfying conclusion.
What you need to know today
US stocks fell on Monday. Major indexes ended lower, even as technology stocks such as broadcom, Confluence and oracleachieved good results. pan-european Stocks 600 The stock ended flat, but defense stocks generally rose.
Paramount Skydance makes hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. In response to the acquisition by Netflix, the company made an all-cash tender offer to WBD shareholders for $30 per share. As competition heats up, here’s what to expect from Paramount and Netflix.
President Trump has authorized NVIDIA to sell H200 chips to China. But that’s only if the U.S. gets a 25% cut in sales, White House leaders said in a post on Truth Social on Monday. Trump added that Chinese President Xi Jinping had “reacted positively” to the proposal.
Berkshire Hathaway’s leadership shuffle. Investment manager and Geico CEO Todd Combs is leaving his position at JPMorgan Chase. Berkshire A general counsel and president will be added to oversee the consumer, services and retail divisions.
(PRO) Ray Dalio’s view of the market. The founder of Bridgewater Associates told CNBC he was betting on AI, but in a different way.
And finally…
A cargo ship loaded with containers departs from Qingdao Port in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, China, on December 4, 2025.
Cost Photo | Null Photo | Getty Images
Despite President Trump’s efforts to curb it, China’s trade surplus exceeds $1 trillion. What does that mean?
China’s trade surplus exceeded $1 trillion for the first time in history in November, despite a sharp drop in exports to the US due to the ongoing global trade war In the first 11 months of this year, China’s overall exports increased by 5.4% compared to the same period in 2024, while imports decreased by 0.6%.
Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said a pick-up in export growth would help alleviate the drag caused by weak domestic demand and put the economy on track to achieve this year’s growth target of “about 5%.”
— Anique Bao and Jeff Cox
