0:00 spk_0
Welcome to Yahoo Finance’s flagship show Morning Bri presented by Robin Hood, the home to commission free trading. I’m Julie Hyman. Let’s get to the three things you need to know today. First up, US stock futures are bouncing back. equity staging a modest comeback after the major averages closed in the red to start December trading. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is also rising after the token saw its worst day since March. The digital asset now currently trading above $87,000 per token. However, crypto’s retail traders havehit hard, namely those who piled into leveraged ETFs tracking Bitcoin giants Strategy. That company has struggled to ease investor concerns amid the rout in digital tokens following a 60% drop from recent highs. Strategy said it had created a $1.4 billion reserve, the US dollar reserve, to fund dividend and interest payments, but the most popular leveraged exchange traded funds tracking strategy stocks, that’s MSTX and MSTU, they’ve both dropped more than 80%.Meanwhile, Wall Street’s institutional adoption of crypto is progressing. Bank of America says its wealth management clients should start thinking about getting some crypto exposure in their portfolios. The firm endorsing a 1 to 4% allocation to digital assets for clients, and the world’s second largest asset manager manager, Vanguard is reversing a long standing position on crypto. The firm will now allow ETFs and mutual funds that primarily hold cryptocurrencies to be traded on its platform.Let’s get a check in on stock futures right now. We are seeing a little bit of green across the screen here right now. Nasdaq futures are leading these early gains, indicating an advance of about 0.5% at the open. The S&P and the Dow pointing to gains of about 31%. So let’s dig now into our top stories of the day. Stocks are looking to recover from a weak start to December trading. Bitcoin notching its worst day since March. Joining me now, markets and data.Jared Blick, senior markets reporter Ines Ferre, and Michael O’Rourke, Jones trading chief market strategist. Jared, let’s start with you and this sort of nascent modest recovery that we’re seeing this morning.
2:14 spk_1
Yes, it’s a bounce. It’s definitely a bounce. Is it going to continue? We can see in the Wi Fi interaction behind me, a lot of green around the world, and yesterday it was kind of the flip of that. We only saw that in a couple of bright spots in East Asia, but now we’rethe Russell 2000, that is up 0.1%. If we put a two day view here, you can see it’s at the top end of its range. So it’s nice to see it come back, but stocks yesterday had their worst start to December. It’s only one day in admittedly since 2021. What really caught my attention was the bond market. We had surges in the 10 year and the 30 year of about 789 basis points, and that was the biggest jump since 2008.8 and there could be more to that and we can get to that in a second, but I just wanted to go over the volatility situation right now. We typically see the VIX, that’s the so-called sometimes people call it the fear index, that usually trends down and we can see it was elevated yesterday and it’s down by the lows yesterday’s lows right now. And let’s check in on the bond market and see what today is bringing. This is a two day look and we can see it’s been trending.Off of those lows yesterday, it’s up another basis point, that’s a 10 year to 4.11%. The third year up to 4.76%. Typically we don’t see any problems unless the bond the bond market moves very quickly in one direction or another, but sometimes the levels matter too. In the 30 year it’s just above 5%. So we got some breathing room right there. Also want to get to the US dollar versus the Japanese yen.That was something we felt compelled to talk about yesterday. So this plunge right here in the US dollar getting weaker while the yen strengthened had to do with some speculation that the Bank of Japan is going to raise rates, short term rates later in the month. That really didn’t really that didn’t really cause any ripples throughout the day yesterday, I don’t think. Stocks didn’t have the best day, but we saw that forex pair, as it’s called, foreign exchange pair, that recovered nicely.
4:08 spk_0
Um, Mike, let’s get you into this here because yesterday we saw, um, you know, people back from the holiday, the selling happened, seeing a little bit of a bounce today. But as Jared pointed out, it was interesting to see that narrative yesterday about, you know, a potential Bank of Japan hike that having sort of a ripple effect. I mean, how are you feeling about the sort of background action here and the sort of set up for December trading?
4:32 spk_2
Well, yeah, it’s interesting, you know, Jared brings up a good point. We, we, you know, we experienced bond market weakness here, um, you know, the global, uh, the Japanese JGB or the Japanese bond sell off overnight, um, coming into yesterday.And that the interesting aspect there is that selloff in our Treasury bonds occurred as everyone’s betting the Fed’s going to cut rates next week. So you are seeing, uh, you know, whether it’s bifurcation or some type of disconnect there, it’s something to keep an eye on. It’s not alarming yet, but obviously with everyone betting on rate cuts next week.You know, you wouldn’t expect to see treasury yields rising in that scenario. So it’s something to keep on the radar and we’ll see how things develop this week.
5:17 spk_0
Yeah, and I did talk to one investor yesterday who said even if the Fed cuts rates, they control the shorter end of the curve. They don’t control the longer end of the curve, so you could see.I don’t know, interesting action I guess in the wake of that. Obviously one of the other sort of tails wagging the dog in terms of equities has been Bitcoin, right, and the action that we’ve been seeing in cryptocurrencies, which is a story in its own right, but also maybe an influence of what’s going on in equities. Ines, I know you’ve been watching Bitcoin really closely here and looking for, I don’t know, any kind of insight into where the levels are that people are watching.
5:53 spk_3
Yes, so Bitcoin is bouncing a bit today, but yesterday it was tumbling at 7%, Julie, and investors were going risk off with crypto. Look, a couple of ranges that we’re watching. One is Compass Point saying that if Bitcoin were to break below 80,000, you could see a cascade of liquidations into the 70s. So and Compass Point is saying that could be a good entry point for investors that are looking.Get into Bitcoin given all this volatility. You’ve got 10ex research that is saying that they’re expecting Bitcoin to be range bound this year into the end of the year anywhere between they’re looking at anywhere between 70 and 100,000. You really need Bitcoin to get above 110,000 for the street to sort of go fully bullish again on crypto, but in the short term.There’s this volatility that’s happening in these ranges that perhaps the pain isn’t over as Bitcoin has really struggled to rebound.
6:57 spk_0
One of theother interesting elements of this in us is, you know, Mike was just talking about the outlook for Fed rate cuts, and I have been fascinated to the extent to which Bitcoin has been trading off of those probabilities and that outlook, and I know there’s some sort of commentary around that also this morning.
7:17 spk_3
Yes, that’s right. Look, the Fed rate cut of 25 basis points, it’s interesting because some strategists are saying yes, that is good, that is bullish for Bitcoin, but it depends on what happens afterwards, what the narrative will be afterwards for whether or not the Fed will pause afterwards. But what is really important is what will happen next year, and Compass Point came out with a note talking about the front runner for Trump’s pick.Kevin Hassett, he’s the director of the White House National Economic Council, and he’s saying in his note that they published a report, more than 160 page report recommending regulations for blockchain for stablecoins, other digital assets. So what they’re saying is that if Hassett is going to be selected as the next Fed chair, this would be bullish for crypto. It would be bullish for the adoption for the financial system, adopting blockchain for more of that to.Accelerate and the thesis is that if there is some sort of regime change at the Fed, which the street is anticipating, this would be the long term bullish sort of scenario for Bitcoin going into 2026.
8:31 spk_0
Um, so Mike, OK, let’s talk about crypto here for a minute and, and kind of what your latest thinking is on crypto itself, but again that sort of interplay between Bitcoin and stocks.
8:43 spk_2
Yeah, I mean, Bitcoin is a risk asset and with the, you know, the election of the Trump administration.Uh, crypto has gone mainstream as an investment asset. Obviously, the Biden administration was very much anti-crypto, anti-digital assets. So you have a new administration. So, I mean, that’s been a theme all year that, that we’ve gone mainstream here, but the, obviously the risk here or the risk that we’re seeing now is that it, it’s a risk asset. It’s been widely adopted. Um, there’s been a lot of players.The space, a lot of companies buying Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital assets, so they’re trading more freely. And you know, when they see a shock they’re going to reverberate, it’s going to reverberate in other risk assets and equities themselves are a risk asset. So you’re seeing this high correlation between Bitcoin and the Nasdaq 100 on a lot of days, and it’s understandably so when you see that investment patterns are changing.
9:43 spk_0
And Jared, let’s talk more about Bitcoin, but also about the dollar because I know you’ve been watching some levels on the dollar and sort of what that portends for the rest of the market. Yeah,
9:53 spk_1
I think it’s really interesting to think about the catalyst that could move the market in December. We’ve got a Fed meeting. We’ve got some big jobs numbers in a couple weeks. We’ve got another CPI reading, and anything that leans hawkish, at least for the Fed and their interest rate situation, potentially drives the US dollar higher.But one of the big things I’ve seen a lot of interesting commentary come out and not all agreeing with each other is on what happens if the Supreme Court overrules Trump’s tariffs, and I’ve seen credible arguments either way that that could be dollar supportive or dollar weakening. And now here is the US dollar index, and this goes back to the beginning of the year, and you can see it’s underwater by 9%. That’s a huge amount for a currency to move, much less the reserve currency of the world. But what I want to point out is thatIt’s just been consolidating for the last 6 months or so by its lows, and the high, the number to watch is about 100.5 in this index, and I think that’s going to cue the markets and ultimately determine if we have a truly risk on reaction to the takeaway of these tariffs if that happens or the reverse of that situation. I checked the poly market odds this morning, only a 26% chance being baked in by investors right now that the Trump tariffs.Stand. So I’ll just be watching a key level in the US dollar index. If it shoots above 100.5%, I think that spells trouble for risk markets. And then in Bitcoin, if I put a two year chart on, really big obvious level is $75,000 2024 highs, 2025 lows. If that goes, then I think that’s a really kind of portending more risk off for stocks. But I think the base case is that we just kind of chop around for a little bit in December and then find our way higher into the end of the month.
11:34 spk_0
Jared, Ines, Mike, thanks so much. Mike is going to stick around and join me in a few moments. And you can also, speaking about crypto, tune in next hour for my interview with the CEO of Strategy, not to be confused with Michael Saylor, who is the executive chair, but the CEO of strategy, Fong Lei, who gave a podcast interview over the weekend that got a lot of attention. We’re going to be talking about that and about strategy’s creation of that $1.4 billion US dollar reserve at the company.Well, billionaires Michael Dell and Susan Dell are donating $6.25 billion to fund the so-called Trump accounts. The billionaire CEO of Dell will fund investment accounts for 25 million US children through that donation.The couple’s commitment will also be the largest ever devoted to American children according to Invest America. The Dells have committed to seed Trump accounts with $250 for children who are 10 or under who were born before January 1, 2025, and the donation goes hand in hand with the new federal government program that allows parents to open tax advantage investment accounts for children under 18 with social.Security numbers. Under the federal program, US citizens born from the beginning of 2025 through 2028 will receive a federal grant of $1000 to see these so-called Trump accounts. Trump accounts can only be used to invest in low-cost diversified funds that track a US stock index. President Trump will host an event on the Trump accounts at 2 p.m. Eastern today. This Dell donation.To cover children who would not otherwise be covered by this program and by the way, when these kids turn 18, they will be able to withdraw that money. They will be subject to capital gains, and they will be able to use it for particular uses, college down payment on a house, etc. So we’ll have more on this story throughout the day. Coming up next on Morning Brief, we’ll bring you today’s top training tickers and count you down to the opening bell.Welcome back to Morning Brief presented by Robin Hood. Now time for some of today’s trending tickers. We’re watching Costco, Boeing, and Marvel. First up is Costco, the retailer suing the Trump administration for refunds if the Supreme Court does strike down the president’s tariff policy. Costco is joining a growing list ofBusinesses to file suits and said the lawsuit is necessary to make sure it’s eligible for refunds. Costco is one of the biggest companies looking to secure a refund. Last month, the Supreme Court heard arguments that President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are illegal. The Trump administration has asked the court to provide legal clarity soon.Next up is Boeing. Shares jumping as the planemaker makes progress on its finances. It expects to generate cash on an annual basis in 2026 as it prepares to boost monthly production rates and push ahead with certification for its 777X jetliner. The company’s CFO made the.At a UBS conference today, it was also his first solo presentation at an investor event since being named to that post in August. Boeing expects positive free cash flow to reach the low single digits next year. That reverses the $2 billion cash burn that was seen for this year.And finally, Marvel, the chipmakers in advanced talks to acquire chip startup Celestial AI. According to the information, it would be a cash in stock deal worth multiple billions of dollars. The total deal price, including earnouts from product milestones, could be higher than $5 billion. Marvell currently competes against Broadcom for uh the the custom chip and networking businesses. Marvell will report earnings after the closing bell, and the deal could come as soon as today.Well, the release of Google’s updated Gemini 3 AI model last month has driven user growth, it has also prompted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to reportedly declare a code red to improve the quality of its chatbot Chatchi BT. Our next guest says that has also touched off a civil war within AI, further carving a divide between those supporting the Google complex and the Open AI complex. Joining me now, Michael O’Rourke, Jones creating chief market strategist Mike.Great to see you again. Thanks for sticking with us. So you know we have talked before about your belief that indeed AI is trading in a bubble here and we’ve gotten more headlines like this where there is more competition within the AI space. It seems like Bulls have sort of been betting on everything to win, right? That it’s a big enough pie that everybody will get a slice. Is that the way that people should be thinking about it?
15:59 spk_2
Uh, yeah, I don’t think that’s the way people should be thinking about it. Um, but we, we’ve developed this pattern in the past 15 years or so, is that when, uh, you know, a leader comes about in the technology space, it, it seems to be a winner take all proposition. And so investors are willing to pay extremely high multiples, uh, especially in the early stages because you’reexpecting the company to own the space in the long term and, and you’re going to make it up as time passes. But I think what the events of the past few weeks have shown where Google came out of nowhere or out of left field with Gemini 3, you know, all of a sudden it leapfrogged Open the AI to be, to have the best performing, um, LLM.And, uh, and then on the, in parallel to that, they, you know, they have their own GPUs that, that’s where they train, trained, uh, Gemini 3 on, and that’s performed really well. And of course, they’re a lot cheaper than Nvidia’s GPUs. And while all these companies, right now, there is, of course, room for all these companies in the space that’s growing, but it does make you think, well, obviously, success breeds competition.And what you’re going to see is it’s gonna get, it’s, I would say it’s a, it’s almost a blood sport between the largest, most capitalized organizations in the world finally competing with one another. And that’s where the risk is because they’re going to be trying to outspend each other and outdo one another in order to win this space. And traditionally, they’ve generally had weaker competition, not the largest organizations in the world.
17:39 spk_0
So what we’ve seen in the markets as of late with the Nasdaq pulling back, right? It hasn’t been a huge pullback from the highs. It’s something like 3%. Does that bring a little more rationality into this? Or do you think that there is still a long way down potentially to go?
17:59 spk_2
I think it brings a little more rationality in the sense of what we’ve seen is rotation into Google and Broadcom, as there’s been some profit taking in the video and the likes of Oracle, who’s partnered with OpenAI. Um, so you’re seeing rotation, which is healthy because at least investors are recognizing that there are risks that someone else.Can come out again, another player or, or, you know, someone else can come in and make a big move somewhere and that’s good that investors are at least acknowledging there’s risk out there. But in the same respect, we’re pricing in, in many cases, uh, you know, forward earnings for the next several years based on forecasts.I mean, I think one of the market’s biggest investors’ biggest problems with, uh, you know, with everything that OpenAI has done is, is having $1.4 trillion in spending commitments that are integrated in the order books of all the major technology firms, uh, in, in the world for that matter. And, andYou know, they’re unsure if OpenAI is going to be able to make good on those commitments, and then all of a sudden you have something like, you know, Google jump ahead, it raises further doubts. So I think that’s where the risk is. Yeah, we know the earnings estimates are good, we know the forecasts are good, but everything has to be taken with a big grain of salt at this point in time because the landscape shifted in the past couple ofweeks.
19:26 spk_0
Well, and, and into this environment, it looks like the Fed might cut rates right at its meeting.Um, and in past situations where we have a somewhat speculative environment, even if the rate cut is expected, like, is, is there a risk of putting fuel on the fire here?
19:45 spk_2
Uh, I think, I think there’s a little bit of a risk. Honestly, the Fed has kind of made itself an irrelevant institution at this point in time. We have a massive balance sheet which we finally have some type of ample reserves balance, but it’s still double the level. It was um.You know, prior to the pandemic, so when things like economic data and, and, uh, you know, events in the economy don’t really matter to the Fed anymore, because again, we’ve had two insurance rate cuts, now we’re thinking of doing a third insurance rate cut. The current unemployment rate is still lower than 74, 75% of monthly readings over the past 60, 70 years, um.It’s just that the Fed’s, it’s made itself irrelevant, and that is why change at the feds probably will be a good thing, you know, next year. So I, I, it, it adds a little fuel to the fire, but I think that’s a secondary a secondary factor
20:47 spk_0
here. Fair enough, Mike. Good to see you. Thanks so much.Coming up on Yahoo Finance opening bid, executive editor Brian Sazi is joining me now. Saz, what’s coming up?
20:58 spk_4
Julie, we’re going to stay on all things crypto, of course, and look at what is going on there, what’s not going on there. Stock of the day coin-based Julie, I found two catalysts that might reawaken the stock in about 2 short weeks. So.For that one, Julie,
21:12 spk_0
I was watching American Bitcoin this morning go further down.
21:16 spk_4
Yeah, it’s a tough time in Cryptopatch crypto winner, Julie, that’s the chatter.
21:20 spk_0
OK, bundle up. We’ll, we’ll see. We’ll see. I’m going to be talking to the strategy CEO in the 10 o’clock hour. All right, that does a Morning Brief presented by Robin Hood. Much more ahead on Yahoo Finance.
