Overnight US stocks | The three major indexes fell, with Tesla, Inc. (TSLA.US) dropping more than 4.6%. Spot gold rose 0.84%.

On Wednesday, the three major indexes fell, with tech stocks leading the decline. Tesla, Inc. fell from its high. US Stocks At the close, the Dow fell 228.29 points, or 0.47%, to 47885.97 points; the Nasdaq fell 418.14 points, up 1.81%, to 22693.32 points; the S&P 500 fell 78.83 points, or 1.16%, to 6721.43 points. Tesla, Inc. (TSLA.US) fell more than 4.6%, NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) rose 3.8%, Circle (CRCL.US) fell more than 4.5%. Oracle Corporation fell 5.4%. European Stocks The German DAX30 index fell 120.01 points, or 0.50%, to 23967.32 points; the UK FTSE 100 index rose 85.72 points, or 0.89%, to 9770.51 points; the French CAC40 index fell 20.11 points, or 0.25%, to 8086.05 points; the Euro Stoxx 50 index fell 32.63 points, or 0.57%, to 5685.20 points; the Spanish IBEX35 index rose 6.90 points, or 0.04%, to 16928.80 points; and the Italian FTSE MIB index rose 88.02 points, or 0.20%, to 44078.50 points. Asia-Pacific Stock Markets The Nikkei 225 index rose by 0.26%, the KOSPI index in South Korea rose by 1.43%, and the Indonesia Composite index fell by 0.1%. Foreign Exchange The Bloomberg Dollar Index narrowed its gains, with Federal Reserve Governor Waller expressing support for further rate cuts. The pound lagged behind among G-10 currencies, as the Bank of England is expected to cut rates by 25 basis points on Thursday. The Bloomberg Dollar Index rose 0.2%, rebounding by 0.4% at one point. The pound/dollar fell by 0.3%, to 1.3379, falling to 1.3312 at one point. The dollar/yen rose by 0.6% to 155.70, as the Bank of Japan will announce rate decisions on Friday. The euro/dollar was basically flat at 1.1743, while the euro/pound rose by 0.3% to 0.8777. Cryptocurrency Bitcoin fell by more than 2%, hitting a low of $85,314; Ethereum fell by more than 4.6%, to $2825. Precious Metals Spot gold rose by 0.84% to $4,338.62. Expectations of further monetary easing by the United States, continued political risk from the GEO Group Inc, and strong investor demand supported the price of spot gold. "Despite mixed employment data in the United States, the market still expects the Federal Reserve to cut rates twice in the first half of 2026," said Bas Kooijman, CEO and asset manager of DHF Capital. Kooijman pointed out that investors are currently focusing on the November Consumer Price Index (CPI) data to be released on Thursday, as further signs of slowing inflation could push down yields, weaken the dollar, and test new historical highs in gold prices. Meanwhile, political concerns surrounding the GEO Group Inc have driven safe-haven demand, with U.S. President Trump announcing a blockade of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers, and tensions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East remaining high. Crude Oil WTI crude oil futures for January 2026 on the New York Commodity Exchange rose by 67 cents to $55.94 per barrel, up 1.21%; Brent crude oil futures for February delivery in London rose by 76 cents to $59.68 per barrel, up 1.29%. Macro News Federal Reserve Governor Waller: Monetary policy remains restrictive and there is still room for rate cuts. Federal Reserve Governor Waller said on Wednesday that given concerns about a weak job market, the Fed still has room to cut rates. Waller said, "I still think we may be 50 to 100 basis points away from the neutral rate." This means that the Fed still has room to cut rates. Waller said, given the current economic outlook, "there is no need to rush to cut rates," and in an environment where inflation may moderate, "we can steadily reduce rates to a neutral level." Unemployment rate during Trump's term has risen to 4.6% Midterm election seat losses, risks may rise. U.S. non-farm data released on Tuesday showed that the unemployment rate in November had risen from 4% when President Trump took office to 4.6%. This magnitude of increase is not a good sign, but it is not uncommon historically. According to the Wall Street Journal, since 1953, six U.S. Presidents have experienced an increase in unemployment rate in the first ten months of their first term (Trump's term is actually the second term, but his term was not consecutive), specifically including: Eisenhower (from 2.9% to 3.5%), Nixon (from 3.4% to 3.5%), Ford (from 5.5% to 8.8%), Reagan (from 7.5% to 8.3%), George W. Bush (from 4.2% to 5.5%), and Obama (from 7.8% to 9.9%). Ford's data is less comparable since he became President after Nixon resigned. Among the other five Presidents, except for George W. Bush, each President's party lost at least 12 seats in the subsequent midterm elections. During George W. Bush's term, the focus of the 2002 midterm elections was on national security rather than the economy due to the impact of 9/11. Obama suffered the biggest setback (he himself called it a "shellacking"), losing 63 seats in 2010. It is worth noting that the first ten months of Trump's first term saw the unemployment rate actually drop from 4.7% to 4.2%, but in the 2018 midterm elections, the Democrats still won 41 seats in the House. This indicates that the correlation between the unemployment rate and the election results is not straightforward. Four Republican lawmakers join the Democratic camp, pushing for a vote on the Obamacare. On Wednesday, four moderate Republican lawmakers signed a petition proposed by Democrats to push for a vote on extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), a core issue that led to a government shutdown earlier this year. These subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year, leading to a significant increase in insurance premiums for about 22 million Americans. In addition to 214 Democratic lawmakers, Republican Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike LaRose, Rob Bresnahan, and Ryan McKenzie also joined the petition. "The only thing worse than simply extending Obamacare subsidies for three years without making any reforms is to completely cancel the subsidies without providing any transition measures. Unfortunately, it was the House leadership that created this situation," Fitzpatrick commented. Founder of Canadian subprime auto loan company Tricolor sued, sparking credit crisis concerns. U.S. federal prosecutors have accused the founder of the subprime auto loan company Tricolor Holdings, Daniel Chu, of conspiring to defraud the company's lenders and investors. The indictment alleges that Chu and other Tricolor executives operated the company through "systematic fraud." Tricolor filed for bankruptcy in September after closing over 60 stores in the southwestern United States. Prosecutors claim that, at Chu's direction, executives repeatedly defrauded lenders in various ways, including "repeatedly mortgaging" collateral, manipulating collateral descriptions, and classifying assets used as collateral so that "almost worthless" assets appeared to meet the lenders' requirements. The case has attracted the attention of banks and bondholders in the asset-backed securities market, which rely on accurate reporting of loan-level data to assess risk. In October of this year, JPMorgan Chase disclosed a $170 million loss due to Tricolor loans, sparking concerns about a credit crisis and causing a sharp drop in Bank of America Corp's stock. Canada's population fell by 0.2% in the third quarter, the first decline since the pandemic. Statistics Canada reported on Wednesday that Canada's population fell by 0.2% in the third quarter to a total of 41.6 million, marking the first quarterly decline recorded, except during the pandemic, and contrasting sharply with the trend of a surge in immigrant numbers after the pandemic. Statistics Canada reported that the main reason for the population decline was a decrease in the number of temporary residents. Canadian Prime Minister Kani has continued the policy of his predecessor to reduce the number of foreign students, temporary workers, and asylum seekers in the country, whose numbers surged in 2023 and 2024. In the third quarter, Canada's population grew by only 0.2% compared to the same period last year, the lowest growth rate since records began in 1947. This is in stark contrast to the 3.2% annual growth rate in 2023, which was comparable to some developing countries with higher birth rates. Stock News Micron Technology, Inc. soars in performance due to revenue guidance far exceeding expectations. As the largest computer memory chip manufacturer in the United States, Micron Technology, Inc. (MU. US) has provided an optimistic forecast for the current quarter, indicating increased demand and supply shortages are giving it stronger pricing power. The company announced that revenue for the second quarter is expected to reach $18.3-19.1 billion. Analysts had an average expectation of $14.4 billion for the same period. After the financial report was released, Micron's stock rose by about 6% in after-hours trading. The stock has already risen by 168% this year. There is extreme demand in the market for AI computing components, leading to a supply shortage, which benefits companies like Micron. Industry research analyst Jake Silverman pointed out in a report, "The momentum of rising memory chip prices is unlikely to weaken in the short term." Alphabet Inc. Class C plans to enhance the compatibility of TPU chips with PyTorch to seize the AI computing market. Sources revealed that Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOG. US) is advancing a new project to enhance the performance of its AI chips when running on the globally most widely used AI software framework, PyTorch. This move aims to weaken NVIDIA Corporation's long-standing dominance in the AI computing market. The project, internally codenamed "TorchTPU," aims to eliminate key barriers that have hindered the widespread adoption of TPU chips, making them fully compatible with PyTorch and providing a more user-friendly development experience for customers who have already built systems using PyTorch. Some sources have indicated that Alphabet Inc. Class C is also considering open-sourcing some of the software to accelerate customer adoption. PyTorch is an open-source project strongly supported by Meta Platforms (META. US) and is one of the most commonly used tools for developing AI models. Oracle Corporation's AI halo fades, stock price nearly halved from September high. According to the U.S. financial website investinglive, after Oracle Corporation's (ORCL. US) financial report in September, the stock price briefly soared to $345, making founder Ellison briefly the world's richest person. Ellison positioned Oracle Corporation as the "back-end infrastructure provider for the entire AI revolution," and investors were feverishly chasing remaining performance obligations (RPO), which became the core of bullish sentiment. However, two major factors completely shattered this bubble. One was a reassessment of capital expenditures. In the Q2 financial report, the company raised its capital expenditure guidance for fiscal year 2026 to $50 billion, causing investors to realize that building data centers worth billions through debt issuance is not a "free lunch," and the market expressed concerns about its debt risk. Second is the delay in data center deliveries. There were reports that the data center Oracle Corporation was building for OpenAI might be delayed until 2028. Reasons for favoring Oracle Corporation were all based on speed; if the speed advantage is lost, its high valuation loses support. Oracle Corporation's stock price fell by another 5% today, to $177, down nearly 50% from its September high. NVIDIA Corporation reaches a settlement with Faurecia over former engineer's leak of autonomous driving trade secrets. NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA. US) has reached a settlement with a German subsidiary of Faurecia, a Paris-based automotive parts supplier, ending a lawsuit related to the theft of commercial secrets involving autonomous driving technology. In 2021, an engineer from Faurecia moved to NVIDIA Corporation when the two companies were collaborating on a technical project for Mercedes-Benz. According to a lawsuit filed by Faurecia in 2023, during a video conference, a Faurecia employee found that the engineer's screen displayed Faurecia's source code files, and captured the screen before he closed the window. In earlier court documents, NVIDIA Corporation denied using stolen data to develop its own autonomous parking technology and stated that it had "rolled back" all work completed by the engineer in the project, while also dismissing the engineer.